AUGUSTA — Lacking the two-thirds support necessary to overcome a possible Gov. Paul LePage veto, an $11 million supplemental state budget appeared all but dead late Tuesday.
The measure, which among other things would boost the pay of state law enforcement officers and workers at two state-run mental health hospitals, gained a strong 30-4 vote in the state Senate. But House Republicans withheld their support of the measure saying the increases could wait for the state’s next two-year budget to be set in early 2017.
The 82-66 House vote in favor of the measure makes the chances of passing any supplemental spending over a veto by LePage slim, and drew the ire of House Democrats including House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick.
“Every single person who voted against this compromise budget, which includes only the most basic, emergency bills, owes the people of Maine an explanation,” Eves said. “When any lawmaker wants to leave our seniors behind, refuse to invest in our public safety and neglect the most vulnerable among us, Democrats will stand up and fight back. That’s what we did tonight and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
But House Republicans said the state needed to brace for another potential downturn in the economy and the possibility that two or three of some of the state’s largest employers, including two paper mills and a microchip maker in Southern Maine, could soon be closing.
“House Republicans stood united for fiscal responsibility given the unpredictable economic climate we are currently operating in,” said House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, R-Newport.
“With the uncertainties of a pair of referendums, one seeking to raise the minimum wage, another that would further increase the tax burden on Mainers and the presidential election, we believe we need to be smart and strategic at this time when it comes to the competing priorities of our state,” Fredette said.
House Democrats later voted to remove an emergency preamble on the bill, meaning it would no longer need a two-thirds vote to pass, but it also pushed any new spending to 2017 instead of starting later this year.
The Senate then adjourned without taking the bill up while lawmakers in both bodies seemed to be negotiating behind the scenes to come up with ways to move parts of the bill forward.
As it stands now the spending package includes:
* Increased reimbursement rates for home- and community-based health services for the elderly and adults with disabilities.
* 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 “rainy-day fund.”
House Republicans, however, said they believe the measures could be funded without tapping into the expected revenue surplus, which they and LePage want to move entirely to the rainy-day fund.
“The supplemental budget doesn’t include every Democratic priority; it doesn’t include every Republican priority,” said Rep. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, the House chairwoman of the Legislature’s budget-writing Appropriations Committee. “But from having nothing to something we have been able to broker a compromise that encompasses our common ground and helps us to move forward.”
Rotundo said that while some don’t see the spending increases as an emergency, her committee heard otherwise as they took testimony from a range of organizations and individuals on the spending plan.
“Telling my community they will have to wait until January until help comes to them isn’t an option for me and it shouldn’t be for you,” Rotundo said. “It’s time to address the emergencies before us in a smart way while saving for the future.”
Rotundo and her colleagues noted that their spending plan, largely approved by Senate Republicans, still socked away 90 percent of the anticipated new revenue and that the package included funding for several measures asked for by LePage.
But Rep. Tom Winsor, R-Norway, the lead House Republican on the budget panel, said the new spending was being tacked onto a two-year budget plan passed in 2015 that increased state spending by over $300 million.
“There are many things in this budget, that I think I agree with, as do my colleagues,” Winsor said, “and I would support them if I could vote on them individually, but in total I think there is just too much new and un-emergency spending in this particular proposal.”
Winsor said Republicans wanted to be fiscally responsible in their approach to state spending and that failure of the bill would not dramatically affect the lives of most Mainers.
“If we reject this bill, nothing will happen,” Winsor said. “The sun will rise and set as scheduled and life will continue and our government will continue to provide services to our constituents.”
The spending package remains in legislative limbo, at least until Thursday evening, when the House is set to reconvene to possibly take up compromise legislation on the proposed spending package. The Senate is set to meet again at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
But lawmakers are also racing the clock as their constitutional adjournment date of April 20 is fast approaching.
Correction: Any earlier version of this report contained incorrect information the state Senate is schedule to next meet on Wednesday.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
