Gov. Dan McKee touched on growing healthcare costs, local education, Aquidneck Island’s lack of affordable housing and the pol­icies of the Trump administration while speaking to business owners and industry professionals at Inno­vate Newport on Sept. 3.

The roundtable, sponsored by the Greater Newport Chamber of Commerce, saw McKee field questions from the audience for roughly one hour. Among the many issues addressed, he spoke about the nearly complete Revolu­tion Wind project.

McKee called the federal gov­ernment’s recent shutdown of the project, which would power 200,000 Rhode Island homes, “dis­graceful.”

“Whatever small detours that are happening to us right now, we need to keep doing the work and investing in the areas that are paying off,” he said. “There’s a se­rious amount of job growth that can come to us in that area.”

Throughout the discussion, McKee touted his Rhode Island 2030 plan, which seeks to make strides in the areas of housing, ed­ucation, health and infrastructure with strategies such as increasing learning opportunities outside of the classroom, reshaping career and technical education, a new home ownership program for first- time homebuyers and growing jobs through development.

Healthcare

Richard Cromwell, president of the Portsmouth-based Maritime Solutions and Freedom Boat Club, said businesses are struggling with healthcare costs and asked McKee for his ideas to control increases.

“You said you want to raise wages, but healthcare costs to the businesses and the employees are increasing faster than we can pay them,” Cromwell said.

McKee said the issue represents one of the reasons he did not sign off on the state’s $14.3 bil­lion budget this year, calling the 5 percent increase over last year’s budget “irresponsible,” given infla­tion. He said the state should ex­plore capping HMO increases and encouraged patients to be diligent about the facilities where they choose to receive services, noting emergency rooms visits are vastly more expensive than trips to a pri­mary care provider or an urgent care clinic.

Cromwell’s question touched on an even more localized issue. In July, the Newport City Council voted unanimously to advocate for the preservation of the birthing center at Newport Hospital after it was threatened to be shuttered for financial reasons by Brown Univer­sity Health.

The same month, Brown Uni­versity Health announced it would keep the birthing center open for at least another year but would take the time to evaluate the facility’s future. Recently, the healthcare organization has pe­titioned the state to increase its reimbursement rates for Medicaid patients, pointing to higher rates of reimbursement in Connecticut and Massachusetts and financial challenges at the federal level.

“I don’t really have an answer to it and neither do the hospitals,” McKee said. “Their answer is, ‘Give us more money.’ It’s coming out of the taxpayers’ pocket if we in­crease the reimbursement rates. There’s not a magical fund that’s going to release the dollars.”

McKee said when the birthing center’s immediate fate was in limbo, he met with Brown Uni­versity Health President John Fer­nandez.

“I said, ‘That needs to stay open,’ and we’re going to work to con­tinue to make that happen,” McKee said.

Housing

Councilor Jeanne-Marie Napol­itano said many young people cannot afford to rent in Newport and many families with histories on Aquidneck Island have been pushed out.

“The housing costs are really dramatic here,” she said. “I find it hard to believe that something cannot be offered to these con­tractors to build houses for young people. I’m not saying for free, but to have a program that they can afford.”

McKee said he has worked to address housing at the state level, with between 3,000 and 4,000 units fit for varying income levels being currently developed state­wide. He said he intends to soon release a plan to develop 1,000 starter homes at affordable costs for first-time homebuyers, and said the state has a goal of adding 15,000 housing units by 2030.

Education

McKee noted Newport was the first municipality in the state to sign onto his Learn365 initiative in 2023. The program partners schools with their municipalities to increase academic achievement and attendance with educational opportunities outside the class­room. He said learning centers are being developed across the state for afterschool programming, in­cluding one at the Florence Gray Center.

McKee added that the state has reshaped its approach to career and technical education programs, growing the number of pathways offered in high schools to roughly 300 in his time as governor. He mentioned the Community Col­lege of Rhode Island’s new culinary program, as well as CCRI’s offshore wind turbine training certification.

Federal Immigration Policies

When asked if he was concerned about potential impact on the is­land’s hospitality and landscaping industries because of recently increased federal immigration enforcement, McKee offered his longest answer of the night. He said his “head spins every day in multiple respects” regarding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce­ment issues.

“In terms of interacting with ICE, we already are when there’s a danger in the neighborhood and they’ve identified people that are creating that danger with re­ally unlawful and violent activity, whether it’s a documented or un­documented person, I happen to think they should be [deported], and we should enforce that,” he added.

But McKee said he is against profiling, calling it unconstitutional. He vowed that Rhode Island would not see the kind of enforcement activity that has played out elsewhere in the country, leaving some immigrant and majority-Latino communities afraid to go to work or to shop, disrupting production and revenue.

He called the use of military personnel on American streets “alarming” and said he would prevent it in Rhode Island.

He said of the military deployments to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.: “It’s not even a police state; it seems the vision is a military state,” he said.

McKee also said he supports the military and the Rhode Island National Guard, but “they don’t belong on our streets enforcing police or military-style rule.” He said he does not understand the lack of a larger strategy from Washington to provide a pathway for amnesty or naturalization, while conceding some points and saying the state cooperates with ICE in some scenarios.

“We have to figure out how to make it work no matter what comes our way,” McKee said. “I have taken a position as governor that we should manage our borders, and I think virtually everybody in the country feels that way. I don’t know why it took the Democratic Party so long.

“Anybody who tries to come in and tries to create a military presence on our streets, I’m not going to support that,” McKee said. “I’ll be very proactive about it; that’s not going to happen. We talk about all of these things that are important, education and housing, the plans to address them, but we should be alarmed by this. The bells should be ringing right now. This is real dangerous stuff.”