Rhode Island General Laws Title 35. Public Finance § 35-16-1. Purpose and membership

(a) In order to provide for a more stable and accurate method of financial planning and budgeting and to facilitate the adoption of a balanced budget wherein appropriations and expenditures do not exceed anticipated revenues, as is required by the statutes and constitution of Rhode Island, it is hereby declared the intention of the legislature that there be a procedure for the determination of an official estimate of anticipated state revenues upon which the executive budget shall be based and beyond which appropriations by the legislature and expenditures by the state shall not exceed.

(b) The budget office, the house fiscal advisor, and the senate fiscal advisor shall meet in regularly scheduled consensus revenue estimating conferences (R.E.C.). These conferences shall be open public meetings.

(c) The chairpersonship of each regularly scheduled R.E.C. will rotate among the state budget officer, the house fiscal advisor, and the senate fiscal advisor, hereinafter referred to as principals. The schedule shall be arranged so that no chairperson shall preside over two (2) successive regularly scheduled conferences on the same subject.

(d) Representatives of all state agencies, including by way of illustration, and not by way of limitation, the division of taxation, department of transportation, department of business regulation, department of health, and the office of general treasurer and any other state agency or board responsible for a revenue source under consideration by the R.E.C., are to participate in all conferences for which their input is germane.