$100M added by Dems to budget GOP leader decries ‘open credit card’

AUGUSTA – No one had seen the final product Monday, but the word was quickly circulating around the State House that an all-nighter by majority Democrats last Friday had increased the proposed state budget by more than $100 million.

Some of the Republican members on the Appropriations Committee, who stuck with Democrats until 2 a.m. Saturday when the majority budget was approved, said the $5.8 billion tax-and-spending plan contained new taxes and fees, many of which had never been aired at public hearings.

“They are setting a precedent for spending,” assistant Senate Republican leader Carol Weston said of Democrats. “This budget is nothing but an open credit card. It’s going to allow the state to do deficit spending. No more do we have to worry about a balanced budget – the sky’s the limit.”

The two Democratic chairmen of the Appropriations Committee did not call the panel into work Monday, and the majority budget plan is now under review by nonpartisan legislative budget analysts. The budget document is expected to be released today by the committee chairmen and given its first reading in the Maine House.

Included in the Democrats’ last-minute budget decisions, according to Republicans, are:

. An order directing the Department of Conservation to develop a “nonconsumptive user permit” system that could be instituted through rule making to impose fees and permitting requirements on bird-watchers, hikers and those who use the woods for purposes other than hunting or fishing.

. The ratification of a $40 million collective bargaining agreement with state employees that was delivered Saturday on two hours’ notice.

. An additional $460,000 over two years to hire four more staffers for the Maine Senate.

. The exemption of retailers with buildings exceeding 100,000 square feet from the Business Equipment Reimbursement Tax Program.

. New taxes for satellite television customers.

. A decision to expand a proposed $415 million state revenue bond to $450 million.

“We have an unemployment rate of less than 4 percent, which means most everyone is out there working just as hard as they can,” said Weston, of Montville. “But the Democrats are saying: ‘You’re not sending us enough money – you’ve got to send us more.”

Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, and House Majority Leader Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, said many details of the two-year budget package still were being analyzed by staff, and they declined to comment on most details until the bill was released by the committee chairmen.

The Democratic leaders said the budget would provide the additional $250 million for local education promised under the property tax relief bill passed by the Legislature earlier this year. The majority report would not include plans suggested by Gov. John E. Baldacci to lend out state lottery revenues for 10 years or extend the financing schedule for Maine State Retirement System debt. The Democratic plan also restores more than $52 million in Department of Health and Human Services cuts originally sought by the governor and does not include new broad-based tax increases, they said.

Cummings did say that the proposed exemptions under BETR for large retailers did not translate into a tremendous amount of money – “possibly less than $100,000” – but he did say that many Democrats are opposed to the program they deride as “corporate welfare.”

“I know there are members of my caucus who have said, ‘How dare you take $130 million from the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, physically disabled and brain-damaged, and not touch a single piece of corporate welfare?'” Cummings said. “I think there are members of my caucus who saw the BETR piece as an equity issue.”

Republicans said Monday they would continue to push for a budget resolution to partially fund state government through the end of September to allow for further negotiations on differences separating the two parties. Democrats hope to have a final vote on the majority budget by April 1 and then adjourn the session to allow the bill to become law 90 days later and before June 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

Baldacci then would call the Legislature into “special or emergency” session later in April to finish the remainder of its work.