Senate passes budget plan House yet to get two-thirds majority

AUGUSTA – Republican and Democratic leaders in the Maine House were busy writing down names of dissenting legislators after a preliminary vote on the state’s $5.2 billion budget failed to produce the two-thirds majority necessary to enact the two-year tax-and-spending package.

“Tomorrow could be a short day or a long day depending on this budget,” House Republican leader Joseph Bruno said after the 11:15 p.m. vote.

Earlier in the day, members of the Maine Senate voted 34-1 to enact the budget with Sen. Jill Goldthwait, a Bar Harbor independent, casting the lone dissenting vote. But when the bill finally reached the House for debate, many Republicans and some Democrats expressed misgivings about the budget-building process.

As a result, the preliminary vote approved the budget package 90-55, 11 votes short of the 101 that eventually will be needed for final enactment. Six House members were absent. Only 11 of the chamber’s 61 Republicans voted for the budget proposal, while 80 of the 89 Democrats voted in favor of the motion.

While House Majority Leader Patrick Colwell took down names of Democrats that needed convincing on the budget, Bruno didn’t bother. The GOP leader was clearly disappointed that so many members of his caucus had failed to support the measure he had endorsed with House Democrats and the Maine Senate.

“How am I going to twist any arms?” he asked after the vote. “What have I got to offer them?”

The compromise proposal agreed upon by the Senate and the majority of the House on Thursday 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.

Nearly two months ago, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate 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, had been gathering dust in the Senate while negotiators spent the last two months attempting to broker the 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 new compromise budget preserves the governor’s laptop computer account, also known as the Maine Technology Endowment Fund, but decreases the account’s current $50 million balance by $20 million.

The new proposal 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. The plan also would siphon $35 million from the Rainy Day Fund, as envisioned in the House-approved budget, for Medicaid cost increases.

Also in Part 1 are provisions for a phased closing during 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 original budget plan, the Part 1 compromise does not rely on the $68.5 million in new taxes proposed by King in his original budget bill. Those considerations would be deferred to Part 2, which received $762,000 to fund about $70 million worth of requests under the compromise plan. 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 majority vote.

The Maine House is expected to take the budget up again this morning when extensive debate is expected.