Maine budget problem remains 2-part proposal draws skepticism

AUGUSTA – After weeks of discussion, House and Senate leaders attempted Tuesday to sell a new compromise $5.2 billion state budget proposal to a skeptical and noncompliant rank and file.

Although the governor’s office and legislative leaders agreed in concept to the package, several House Republicans balked at the two-part agreement reached by legislative leadership shortly after 10:30 p.m. Monday. The compromise proposal is defined in two sections: a Part 1 to address current spending for ongoing programs and a Part 2 to underwrite new or expanded state programs or services. Many Republicans wanted to see both parts of the proposal merged and dealt with as a single budget document.

“I want to see them together,” said Rep. Glennys Lovett, R-Scarborough. “That at least gives us some power.”

Most of the power in the budget debate has, until now, been concentrated in the Senate where both Republicans and Democrats united to oppose a spending plan unanimously endorsed by the Appropriations Committee and strongly supported by the House. The Senate ultimately rejected that budget plan and adopted its own. That proposal, which varies substantially from the budget passed in the House, has been gathering dust in the Senate while negotiators spent the last two months attempting to broker a compromise.

The latest compromise version continues to more closely resemble the Senate’s offer rather than the bill approved by the House or the original budget plan submitted by Gov. Angus S. King.

The package being shopped around Tuesday by Democratic and Republican leaders in the House preserves some of the governor’s laptop computer account, also known as the Maine Technology Endowment Fund, which the Senate initially planned to use for other spending priorities. The new proposal decreases the account’s current $50 million balance by only $20 million.

The new plan also continues to provide a 5 percent increase in local educational reimbursement in the budget’s first fiscal year, but leaves unresolved what increase, if any, can be expected in the second fiscal year. And the plan would siphon $35 million from the Rainy Day Fund, as envisioned in the House approved budget, for Medicaid cost increases. The Senate’s budget would have withdrawn much of the estimated $143 million in the Rainy Day Fund to cover other expenses.

Also in Part 1 of the new package are provisions for a phased closing over the next two years of 14 of the state’s remaining 27 liquor stores, the same recommendation made by the Senate. And the compromise adopts the Senate’s original plan for providing a 3 percent cost-of-living increase to nursing home workers.

Like the Senate’s budget, the Part 1 compromise does not rely on the $68.5 million in new taxes proposed by King in his original budget bill.

The compromise package leaves only about $762,000 to fund an estimated $70 million in requests in Part 2 of the budget to be ironed out later. Unlike the Part 1 budget, which requires a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate for passage, the Part 2 proposal only needs a simple majority vote.

House Republicans were not happy with leadership’s failure to resolve additional funding for local education in the budget’s second fiscal year. The previously approved House budget had earmarked an additional 3 percent funding – nearly $20 million – for education in the second year.

Many preferred to embrace a single budget document so that more cuts could be made to state programs without raising cigarette taxes or meals and lodging taxes. Some even advocated withholding the number of GOP votes necessary to achieve the 101 supermajority to pass the Part 1 budget until more program cuts could be made.

“That means you’ve got to be ready to be the bad guy – the guy that’s ready to shut down state government over the budget,” said Rep. Richard Nass, R-Acton.

The specter of another shutdown as occurred in 1991 was sobering to many House Republicans. Several the lawmakers insisted that House GOP leader Joseph Bruno of Raymond should attempt to broker a joint caucus with Senate Republicans to explore the possibility of reworking the two-part budget as a single proposal.

“That’s probably not going to happen,” predicted Assistant Senate GOP Leader Paul Davis of Sangerville. “We have an agreement on that with Senate Democrats and our credibility would be at stake.”

House leaders vowed to continue working with their caucuses to try and build the support necessary to pass a budget before June 30, the end of the current budget cycle.