AUGUSTA – Upon receiving final votes in the House and Senate, the state’s $5.3 billion budget bill was signed into law Thursday by Gov. John E. Baldacci under the supportive gaze of key lawmakers.

“This balanced state budget gives us the tools to aggressively promote economic development across the state,” the governor said. “The bipartisan support sets an important tone that we are serious about doing the state’s business.”

The House gave final enactment to the bill in a 115-31 vote and the Senate followed by endorsing the two-year tax-and-spending package, 28-3. The budget was passed in the 78th day of the Baldacci administration after receiving the unanimous backing of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee last Saturday. The bill not only attracted more than two-thirds support in both houses of the Legislature, it was enacted in one of the shortest time frames in recent history.

Since introducing the budget in February, Baldacci has emphasized his desire for quick resolution of the bill with two-thirds legislative support. The governor cited pressing inquiries from school districts and municipal officials as the reason for the accelerated timetable since many community finance officers wanted guarantees for the level of local educational funding from the state.

Amended by the Appropriations Committee, the bill signed into law Thursday closely resembles the original proposal advanced by the governor, who succeeded in closing a $1.2 billion budget deficit between anticipated state revenues and projected government spending without a tax increase. Described by the administration as the “Part 1” budget, the bill addresses all of the costs associated with maintaining state government at current levels from July 1, 2003, through June 30, 2005. Baldacci plans to submit a much smaller financial package to lawmakers later this spring to deal with new programs and erase a newly projected $48 million deficit in a “Part 2” budget.

There are other economic hurdles ahead for the Baldacci administration. Before he can develop a solution for cutting $48 million from the two-year budget that begins July 1, 2003, he must act on a more pressing $23 million budget gap in the current budget cycle that ends June 30. And after he resolves both of those problems, he expects he may have to submit a supplemental budget for the bill he signed Thursday if state revenues fail to reach satisfactory levels.

In addition to community concerns, Baldacci also hoped that a quick and decisive vote on the budget would send a message of state stability to business interests inside and outside Maine. While those beliefs were shared by the overwhelming majority of lawmakers Thursday, a dissenting view was offered by Rep. Thomas Murphy, R-Kennebunk. Looking ahead to the next budget two years from now, Murphy said legislative staffers have pegged the next structural gap at between $300 million and $1.1 billion – depending on the level of incoming revenue. He reminded the lawmakers that two years ago, Gov. Angus S. King had felt comfortable with a $300 million deficit in the next budget that ballooned to the current $1.2 billion.

A former House GOP floor leader, Murphy eloquently presented his conservative challenge of the budget, which he said had been rushed through the legislative process without receiving the level of scrutiny it deserved.

“I would call this budget the ‘blinders budget’ because we’re closing our vision – as we did with previous budgets that had structural gaps,” he said. “If we did this [budget process] as a business, and we had been proven as wrong as we were in the previous Legislature, we wouldn’t be in business anymore because we’d be bankrupt.”

Murphy’s assessments were answered by House Majority Leader John Richardson, D-Brunswick, who emphasized that an overwhelming House vote would prove that lawmakers could put partisan differences aside when faced with difficult decisions.

“In this budget, there’s a lot of tough love and there’s a lot not to like about it,” he said. “But we heard clearly from Maine people and they did not want us to raise taxes in order to balance this budget. And we met our obligation.”