Foundation grants help promote Census count

The slow, painstaking process of counting every American could build to a dramatic cliffhanger finish this year in Rhode Island, where the latest population estimates show the state’s previously dim prospects of keeping a second congressional seat have brightened.

Rhode Island’s share of the U.S. population has been trending down for years, but the last estimate before the big decennial Census count begins in April shows a turnaround, according to Rhode Island’s longtime redistricting and elections consultant

Kimball Brace, who now projects the state “extremely close” to keeping two seats.

Also working in the Ocean State’s favor is its first-ever state-sponsored “complete count” effort to make sure no residents slip through the Census net, something many other states, particularly in Republican-leaning areas of the country, are not doing.

“With only four months until Census Day, many states have appropriated funds to help send a message to their constituents about the importance of participating in the Census,” Brace wrote in an analysis on his company’s website. “Many of these states are on the edge of gaining or losing a seat in the apportionment process, but there are some notable exceptions. For example, Texas has not appropriated any funds for Complete Count efforts, and yet whether they stand to gain only two or maybe three additional seats may depend on how good the counting is conducted in the state.”

So with the margin tight and the stakes high (Rhode Island receives $3.8 billion from the federal government annually based on population), it’s not inconceivable the state could increase its $500,000 commitment to maximizing its Census count, even without trying controversial approaches like paying people to move here.

But right now at least, a new injection of Census-related spending money doesn’t appear likely.

“Last year, the state allocated $700,000 — including $200,000 in federal funds — to support the efforts of the Complete Count Committee,” Josh Block, spokesman for Gov. Gina Raimondo, wrote in an email Friday. “This funding complements the additional $530,000 that was raised from private sources. The Committee is confident that it can implement its robust community outreach plan within this budget, and we do not anticipate proposing additional funding this year.”

Raimondo is set to unveil her annual state budget plan Jan. 16.

While the Complete Count Committee, co-chaired by Department of Health Director Nicole Alexander-Scott and Central Falls Mayor James Diossa, isn’t asking for more money, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t use it.

The Complete Count effort includes an advertising campaign to alert people the Census is coming — which Nail Communications recently secured a $425,000 contract to lead — grants to community organizations who work with the populations usually undercounted, and then direct field operations during the count in Census tracts with a low response rate.

As the project has ramped up, some of the money initially expected to go to field operations has gone to advertising, Jessica David, executive vice president of strategy & community investments at the Rhode Island Foundation and member of the Complete Count Committee, said Friday. And the requests for grants from community organizations have easily exceeded the available funding.

“I think the sense of the group is that [losing a seat] was always going to be close and we are sticking to the plan we developed and trying to execute it well,” David said about the effort after a Complete Count working group meeting Friday morning.

Today the Rhode Island Foundation is set to announce around $300,000 in Complete Count grants to community groups working to promote the Census, after receiving grant requests of $1.2 million from 60 organizations.

Recipients include the Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education in Providence, $10,000; Progreso Latino in Central Falls, $20,000 and Meals on Wheels in Providence, $10,000.

The others are: Amos House, the Center for Southeast Asians, Children’s Friend and Service, the City of Newport, Clinica Esperanza/Hope Clinic, the East Providence Public Library, the Elisha Project, Fuerza Laboral, Generation Citizen, Genesis Center, House of Manna Ministries, the Museum of Work & Culture, NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley, ONE Neighborhood Builders, Providence Community Opportunity Corp., Ready to Learn Providence, the Refugee Development Center, Rhode Island Professional Latino Association, the R.I. Coalition for the Homeless, The College Crusade of Rhode Island, Thundermist Health Center, Turning Around Ministries and the West Elmwood Housing Development Corp.

The Rhode Island Foundation is taking applications for another Census grant funding round until Jan. 31.

In other Census news last week, the Census Bureau announced Thursday it is raising the pay for part-time enumerators, the folks who go door to door counting people from $22.50 to $25 an hour to “attract more qualified candidates.”

Census Bureau spokesman Keith Goralski said the agency has raised pay in “several counties across the country” but five-county Rhode Island is the only state with raises in all counties.

Pension fund extension

The $5-million investment that venture-capitalist — and current governor — Gina Raimondo sold the R.I. pension fund in 2006, before running for office, has put her successor as state treasurer, Seth Magaziner, in a bind.

The state has not been able to get out of the expired 10-year agreement with Point Judith Capital.

On Friday, the R.I. treasurer’s office made public letters in which PJC managing partner David Maritrano advised the state that the other “limited partners’’ had approved another one-year extension — and agreed to waive fees — pursuant to an unseen “Amendment No. 9.”

“Although they have shown some improvement in recent years, they have not performed as well as most of our other private equity investments,’’ Magaziner told The Journal. He said he would rather “re-deploy” those dollars elsewhere, but the state’s “only other option really” at this point is to try to sell its remaining stake in PJC to another investor at a likely loss.

Magaziner has refused, however — as Raimondo did in her turn as state treasurer — to make public the state’s 2006 agreement with PJC. He will not even say what in that agreement has allowed the other PJC shareholders to decide to hold onto R.I.’s money — without R.I.’s okay — years after the agreement expired. “That is something that is not done by any pension fund with any investment, like, anywhere,’’ he said.

His argument: “If we become the first state or one of the first pension funds to ever break a confidentiality clause in one of these contracts it could inhibit our ability to invest with other high-performing [funds] in the future.” Magaziner said that could put R.I.’s pensioners “through more pain than they have already been in.”

But here’s the rub: Magaziner says he is doing what is required by the PJC agreement he “inherited.”

A spokeswoman for Raimondo — who received $888,743 in 2018 from the “blind trust” in which she placed her own Point Judith holdings after winning public office — told The Journal: “You’re asking about amendments to the contract that were made after she resigned [from PJC] in 2010. She’s had no management or decision making role since then.”

Asked who manages Raimondo’s blind trust — and whether it voted on the PJC extensions Magaziner says he opposed, the spokeswoman, Jennifer Bogdan, said: “By nature of it being a blind trust we don’t have access to information around voting history. Those questions and any questions about management should be directed to Point Judith.” (PJC has not responded to inquiries.)

As of Sept. 30, 2019, the state had invested a total of $6.28 million in PJC, received $7.93 million back in disbursements, and still held $1.26 million worth of residual PJC assets. Total fees through FY19: $1,543,527.

The City of Providence pension fund is in the same bind. Its 10-year commitment expired on December 31, 2016, was renewed twice and then kept in place by PJC. It invested a total of $978,686.07 in PJC, received $1,307,039.50 in distributions, had $252,684.40 in residual PJC holdings as of September 30. Total fees paid: $218,688.

“Had the Fund terminated at the end of 2019 without an additional extension, the remaining assets would have been sold in a fire sale according to the General Partner and the expected sale prices would likely have been a significant discount to the potential value of the investments,’’ city spokeswoman Patricia Socarras said.

2019 by the numbers

And now a look back at 2019 courtesy of year-end numbers from

Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea’s office.

• 783,478: The number of registered Rhode Island voters at the end of the year, down from 793,030 in December 2018 and up from 769,177 in December 2017.

• 624: The number of lobbyists who registered with the state last year, down from 627 lobbyists in 2018 and 684 in 2017.

• 1,249: The number of “relationships,” or lobbying agreements with a company or organization those lobbyists entered into last year, up from 1,194 in 2018 and 1,164 in 2017.

• 17,104: The number of public meetings posted on the secretary of state’s website last year, down from 18,375 in 2018 and around the same as 2017.

• 9,458: The number of businesses incorporated last year, up from 9,219 in 2018 and 8,607 in 2017.

• 2,481: The number of visits to the State Archives on Westminster Street in Providence last year, up from 2,361 in 2018 and 1,829 in 2017.