Baldacci to unveil budget plan

AUGUSTA – Gov. John Baldacci, maintaining a do-without-stance on broad-based tax increases, will be seeking a wide audience next week when he unveils his budget proposals for the upcoming two years, according to administration officials.

Baldacci spokeswoman Crystal Canney said Wednesday the governor will use a combination of prepared and live televised presentations and media briefings to outline the thrust of his 775-page biennial spending plan.

The official release is scheduled for Jan. 5, two days after Baldacci’s second inauguration.

The Jan. 3 swearing-in ceremony will be held at the Augusta Civic Center and an inaugural gala will be held the following evening at the same location.

As part of his budget package, Baldacci will detail new steps to streamline state government, administration finance chief Rebecca Wyke said.

“It’s a good budget, it meets our responsibilities,” Baldacci said, declining to provide details beyond confirming that the plan calls for no boost in broad-based taxes.

The governor is due to submit General Fund and Highway Fund budget proposals by the end of next week. Also upcoming are supplemental spending requests for the last half of the current fiscal year.

Unspecified streamlining initiatives are an essential package component, Wyke said.

“It’s a spending plan. … Without including your spending reductions and how you would achieve them, I don’t know how else you would close a budget,” Wyke said.

Earlier this month, Maine’s Revenue Forecasting Committee hiked its General Fund projection for the current fiscal year by $86.4 million and jacked up its General Fund estimates for fiscal 2008 and 2009 by $87.5 million and $93.4 million, respectively.

Two months earlier, in October, Baldacci administration officials said state government was confronted by a potential gap of $570 million between available resources and anticipated demands for the next biennium.

Administration officials said more than one-third of the gap – $202 million – was attributable to increased state aid to local schools.

On Wednesday, Wyke aide Ellen Schneiter was sworn in as Maine’s state budget officer, succeeding Ryan Low. Low has moved into the governor’s office as deputy chief of staff.

Schneiter has served as the associate commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, overseeing service centers that provide financial services and human resources support to state departments and agencies.

Schneiter joined the Baldacci administration as deputy director of the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance.

She previously worked as director of the Maine Medical Assessment Foundation, executive director of the Maine Health Care Reform Commission and director of policy for the Maine Health Care Finance Commission.