Allan Fung's new $84K-a-year lobbying contract with RIPTA questioned by some. Here's why

PROVIDENCE – Former Cranston Mayor and GOP candidate for Congress Allan Fung - and his firm- have been handed a new $84,000 a year lobbying gig by the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, an agency headed by another former Republican mayor, Scott Avedisian.

Fung, who lost his bid for Rhode Island's 2nd Congressional District seat against Democrat Seth Magaziner in November, registered to lobby for RIPTA from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2023, at $7,000 a month.

He registered to lobby under the corporate name PLDO STRATEGIES LLC, a legislative lobbying offshoot of Pannone Lopes Devereaux & O’Gara LLC, the law firm that hired Fung as a partner in February 2021 after his 12-year mayoral run ended.

In a telephone interview on Friday night, RIPTA Chairman Normand Benoit said, in his mind, RIPTA was hiring Matthew Lopes, another long-time lobbyist at the same firm with whom he worked well to get legislative grant funding for Boys & Girls Club[s] in the past.

Benoit told The Journal that "Matty Lopes was hired as the main lobbyist, assisted by Brian Jordan," under a contract that took shape at a point most political prognosticators expected Fung to win a seat in Congress.

He surmised: "the firm [has] the contract. Allan probably listed himself as one of five or whatever [at PLDO Strategies] out of an abundance of caution. And maybe, he will talk to somebody here and there, a Republican. I don't know. I don't know how that happened. In my mind, we were hiring Matty."

Benoit said the decision to hire a seasoned State House lobbyist evolved out of several concerns, chief among them: the "fiscal cliff" the public transit agency faces after FY24 when "all of our federal money runs out." That includes the $29.6 million in Federal Emergency Relief (CARES) dollars the state is counting on to pay a big chunk of RIPTA's operating expenses next year.

"Unless we somehow get a new source of revenue that is sustainable from the General Assembly," Benoit said: "We will have to make really massive cuts to how many runs we can do, how many routes we can do."

This lobbying contract with RIPTA is a new client for Pannone Lopes, which has lobbied in the past for PHRMA, Eli Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies, as well as Advantage Capital, the American Council of Life Insurers and others.

At this point, RIPTA is Fung's only lobbying client, however, and it appears RIPTA has not had a paid lobbyist at the State House in at least a decade. From 2005-2008, Peter McGinn of Tillinghast Licht LLP lobbied for RIPTA. In 2011-2013, R. Kevin Horan lobbied for RIPTA under a $2,000 contract, according to the secretary of state's office.

Board member questions Fung's lobbying contract

It is not yet fully clear how Fung was chosen, or who approved his hiring for what amounts to a new contract for a heavily taxpayer-subsidized public transit agency that spent $128.6 million in the year that ended June 30, 2022.

But RIPTA board member Patrick Crowley, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO in Rhode Island, told The Journal: "I think it should be rescinded."

"The contract was not brought to the board for discussion or a vote. The board has not even been told when the contract was signed, nor have we seen the contract."

"At the board meeting this past Wednesday was the first time it was revealed that RIPTA had entered into the agreement," Crowley said. "At that meeting, I stated that it should have been brought to the board for discussion and action."

RIPTA responds to questions

RIPTA spokeswoman Cristy Raposo Perry answered some questions, but not all, in this response to Journal inquiries:

"The decision to hire a lobbyist was based on the fact that senior leadership and the chairman of the board at RIPTA felt that the agency had a number of historic projects and challenges on its plate (downtown Transit Center, implementing the statewide Transit Master Plan, FY 2026 Fiscal cliff)  that all require an enhanced level of focus and expertise."

Gov. Dan McKee has proposed increasing the RIPTA budget to $143 million this year, and to $144.2 million next year. And that does not include the statewide expansion of a small free-transit pilot project.

The largest single source of RIPTA's income is state gas-tax receipts. Projected passenger revenue accounts for only $23.6 million of that total in McKee's proposed 2023-24 budget.

Avedisian, RIPTA's CEO, is a former Republican mayor of Warwick. The board members include Peter Alviti, the state's transportation director, who was director of public works in Cranston earlier in his career and former Sen. Robert Kells, and others.

Avedisian has not yet responded directly to Journal inquiries about how and why Fung's new consulting gig was created. Alviti would not answer questions about what and when he knew about Fung's hiring. His spokesman at RIDOT referred questions to the RIPTA chairman, who has not yet responded to Journal attempts to reach him.

Asked where the governor stands on Fung's new RIPTA contract, spokesman Matt Sheaff said: "RIPTA has an independent board and we are going to defer comment to them."

The new lobbying contract – first reported by GoLocalProv.com – was not discussed publicly at any of the RIPTA board meetings in recent months until it apparently came up Wednesday to the surprise of at least one board member.

Time was reserved on each earlier agenda for closed-door "executive sessions" to discuss "the acquisition or lease of real property for public purposes ... the investment of public funds where the premature disclosure would adversely affect the public interest ... and [matters] pertaining to collective bargaining or litigation," according to RIPTA's website.

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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RIPTA hires Allan Fung as a lobbyist, but some question the contract