The long-anticipated resignation of Gary Sasse is at hand. As recently as yesterday afternoon, Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe denied that Sasse's resignation had already been accepted.

WRNI has learned that Carcieri administration briefings with municipal officials and labor leaders were cancelled this afternoon, perhaps because of the release of this document:

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM

TO: Andy Hodgkin, Beverly Najarian, John Robitaille, Gary Sasse, Rosemary Booth Gallogly, Mike Cronan, Fred Sneesby
   
FROM:  Amy Kempe

RE: FY 2010 Supplemental budget briefing schedule and message points

UPDATE: Comment from Carcieri.

An excerpt:

Tom Sgouros has a very smart essay about the issue of Rhode Island's balooning state debt, which nobody in the State House seems to want to address.

The structural deficit is just the fancy term for the deficit next year (and the years after). It's an acknowledgement that revenues and expenses do not match, despite what we may have done or not done to patch it together for the current year.

In what is believed to be the first vote approving a lingering debt-reduction agreement with the state, a union representing 200 Department of Health workers has supported the pact.

The union, a unit of the National Education Association, approved the agreement on a 128-to-35 margin, says Patrick Crowley, the NEA's assistant executive director. The unit represents scientists, inspectors, and other Health Department workers.

Rhode Island, as we know, has its own unique challenges when it comes to economic development. The Ocean State nonetheless has some distinguished company when it comes to the latest joblessness figures.

From CNN:

California, Nevada and Rhode Island each hit record-high rates, the Labor Department said.

This just in:

Contract Update: No Vote Today

Yesterday, Council 94 sent a counter proposal to the state and requested a meeting with the administration.  Currently we have not had the meeting.  Council 94 hopes negotiations with the state will continue soon and because we have no complete proposal or agreement, a vote will not be taken today.

As Scott predicted would be the case on September 9, Andy Hodgkin gets the nod as Governor Carcieri's latest chief of staff:

Hodgkin left the Carcieri Administration in 2007 to start his own law firm with a focus on state and federal regulatory issues and private business transactions.
 

J. Michael Downey, president of ASFCME's Council 94, the largest state workers' union, expects to receive a written agreement from the Carcieri administration on Monday. Downey says he's "very optimistic" that the pact will be approved by Council 94's membership during a subsequent vote, perhaps on September 25.

WRNI has learned that leaders of state public employee unions and the Carcieri administration are close to a tentative deal that would avert the governor's 12 planned shutdown days and layoffs of state workers.