AUGUSTA — Lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee on Monday voted out two versions of a supplemental budget, with House Republicans again bucking the rest of the committee on new spending.
The committee voted 8-4 in favor of an approximately $11 million spending plan. The funding would apply to bills that have already won passage.
Legislators have been quietly working on the supplemental budget proposal for weeks, but the process became public last week when Democrats on the budget-writing Appropriations Committee revealed a $43.8 million list of their priorities.
In an initial discussion on Wednesday, House Republicans on the committee said they have little or no appetite for any new spending this year. Republican Rep. Jeff Timberlake of Turner said his caucus would be more amenable to a budget bill if Democrats would consider letting a competing minimum wage measure onto the November 2016 ballot along with one that resulted from a citizen petition process.
The committee-generated budget bill comes as Gov. Paul LePage has declined to offer a supplemental budget amid arguments from lawmakers that there are bills that should be funded this year and a revenue surplus that makes it possible. LePage has said publicly that he will propose a supplemental budget in January 2017, after a new Legislature is elected and seated.
The spending plan endorsed by a majority of the budget committee Monday includes:
— Raises for employees at two state-run mental health hospitals, Dorothea Dix and Riverview psychiatric centers.
— Increased reimbursement rates for home- and community-based mental health services.
— Pay increases for state troopers and other state law enforcement officers to help with recruitment and retention.
— One-time funding to support county jails in the current fiscal year.
— A reimbursement system for medical service providers to correct a mistake made in last year’s biennial budget bill, which increased the service provider tax from 5 percent to 6 percent.
— Funding for education tax credits to help ease student debt.
The spending package totals about $11 million and proposes to send about $44.5 million of year-end surplus to the state’s budget stabilization fund, otherwise known as the rainy day fund.
Republican Sens. Roger Katz and James Hamper of Oxford joined Democrats in supporting the proposal.
House Republicans on the committee didn’t support the budget bill and presented one that transfers all $55.5 million of surplus to the rainy day fund.
Voting against the compromise amendment were House Republicans Tom Winsor, Jeff Timberlake, Heather Sirocki and Bob Nutting.
“We have already passed a budget eight months ago,” said Timberlake. “We’re not in a crisis.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
