Spending bill would provide $46.5M for projects in Maine

WASHINGTON – The massive omnibus spending bill that the Senate will take up next week includes hundreds of millions of dollars in special projects for New England states.

But while the small state of New Hampshire would receive one of the highest totals based on population, reaping more than $204 per capita, Connecticut ranks near the bottom, getting barely $18 per person in the $373 billion measure.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine and Vermont all fared well, getting between $32 and $50 per capita, based on the census and an analysis by the Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government watchdog group.

A merger of seven appropriations bills, the measure would finance most of the government’s domestic programs, including 11 Cabinet-level departments and scores of other agencies for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. It passed the House in early December but stalled in the Senate.

It funds more than $10 billion in hometown projects, including $263 million for New Hampshire, $206 million for Massachusetts, $62.6 million for Connecticut, $46.5 million for Maine, $44.4 million for Rhode Island and $31 million for Vermont.

Major projects for the region include $154.5 million for prison construction in Berlin, N.H.; $73 million for repairs to the John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse in Boston; $7.7 million for border station construction in Jackman, Maine; $5 million for the Adriaen’s Landing development project in Hartford, Conn.; $5 million for removal of the Old Jamestown Bridge near Newport, R.I.; and $4 million for the Missisquoi Bay Bridge in Vermont.