PROVIDENCE BUSINESS NEWS
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JANUARY 7-20, 2022
BUSINESS WOMEN She took her own route in transportation career | 8
EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS At first, providing a taste of culture wasn’t easy | 13
YOUR SOURCE FOR BUSINESS NEWS IN SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND | VOL. 36, NO. 18 | $5
Housing market may stay hot in ’22 BY JACQUELYN VOGHEL | Voghel@PBN.com
PROSPECTIVE HOMEBUYERS shouldn’t expect substantial relief on the horizon when it comes to house prices. Following a record-breaking year for the residential real estate market in 2021, industry observers say 2022 is poised to remain a seller’s market. As Timothy Howes, an associate professor and department chair of graduate business programs at Johnson & Wales University, sees it, the market will likely go “from ridiculous to hot.” “Prices still seem to be trending upward, but they’re trending upwards at a slower rate again,” Howes said.
FOCUS: ECONOMIC FORECAST
SEE HOUSING PAGE 16
ONE LAST THING
Nina Pande Hiring? Embrace the nontraditional | 26
WHAT TO DO WITH A
WINDFALL?
Spending $1B in ARPA money a big focus of legislative session BY CASSIUS SHUMAN | Shuman@PBN.com
AFTER
YEARS OF GRAPPLING WITH GAPING BUDGET deficits, state legislators are facing a problem in the 2022 General Assembly session unlike any they’ve seen in recent memory. They have more money than they know what to do with. Well before the opening day of the legislative session on Jan. 4, lawmakers have been mulling over how to deploy the state’s $1.1 billion slice of American Rescue Plan Act funding, and it is expected that they’ll spend much of the winter and spring hashing out those plans. So far, the task hasn’t been as easy as it might sound, with no shortage of advocates, groups and individuals jockeying to get help for their cause. General Assembly leaders are moving deliberately. “It is a balancing of the immediate needs of people who need the money right away, and also the long-term benefits,” House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi said recently. “The good news is the federal government has given us three years to spend it. That is written into the law, but we are not going to take three years to spend it.”
FULL PLATE: Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio, left, and House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi meet at the R.I. Statehouse. With the 2022 legislative session underway, there’s no shortage of issues for the leaders to tackle. PBN PHOTO/ ELIZABETH GRAHAM
SEE SESSION PAGE 11
FEBRUARY 10, 2022 | 9AM 2022 – THE CHALLENGES AHEAD: Inflation, supply chain, labor shortages ... and now Omicron…
For more information turn to page 15
