Debt to society

Two things voters might want to know about state Sen. Jeffrey Butland’s pledged citizen-veto campaign to stop the Maine Governmental Facilities Authority from borrowing $138 million to repair public buildings and construct prisons.

The campaign hasn’t a prayer of getting the necessary 52,000 signatures because bonding strategies aren’t on the things-to-worry-about list of most people, Sen. Butland’s own political party is divided about it and a recent opinion by the Attorney General’s Office makes the senator’s constitutionality claims look dubious.

He makes a good point.

No, not about constitutional requirements, but about the need for the public to be aware of the debt taken on by the facilities authority. Unlike Maine highway or housing authorities, facilities doesn’t have sources of revenue to pay the principal and interest on the construction money. Instead, it will rely on state agencies using the buildings to repay the debt. The state agencies get the money from … well, guess.

Part of the reason that Maine does not have a lot of debt through its general obligation bonds — the ones voters decide on in November — is that the Legislature can turn to various quasi-governmental authorities to carry the debt. In this case, legislators raised the level of debt the facilities authority could accept and instructed it to issue bonds for the repair of the decrepit State House and associated buildings ($53 million) and construction of new prisons ($85 million). In the past, such bonds have needed to be approved by two-thirds of the Legislature. That was changed this time to a simple majority of lawmakers, the change also being approved by a simple majority.

Several Republicans understandably protested both the expenditures themselves and the manner in which they were approved. Part of their protest was political: the bonds for State House repairs and prison construction, which are badly needed, had poor prospects at the polls. Forcing Democrats to put their bond proposals before the public was a chance to embarrass the opposition. Nevertheless, here is where Sen. Butland’s good point comes in.

Maine lacks a coherent system for issuing its general obligation bonds, and instead follows a 20-year-old habit of limiting this year’s bonds to 90 percent of the amount retired the previous year. One of the results of this policy is to eventually prohibit the state from borrowing through general obligation at all. Another result is that lawmakers get more creative about sneaking debt into the system through other means. The $138 million is an example of the latter.

Since the Legislature has now established that any party in the majority can raise the authority’s debt to any number it can imagine, now is a good time for Gov. Angus King to round up the various interests, with a prominent spot left for a representative of taxpayers’ concern, and establish a debt ceiling based more on logic than habit and a better notion of what ought to be bonded under general obligation and what should be passed over to the housing, highway, facilities and school authorities.