Legislators seek budget solutions Panel looks at trimming state campaign funding

AUGUSTA – Members of the Legislature’s appropriations committee are going far beyond the budget proposals of Gov. John Baldacci to set their own spending priorities. For example, state-funded campaigns for the Legislature or governor could be reduced or eliminated as part of the push to balance the state budget.

“We have to look at everything,” said Rep. Jeremy Fischer, D-Presque Isle, co-chairman of the committee. “We are looking at a lot of areas the governor did not propose in his supplemental budget.”

As the result of a citizen-initiated referendum a dozen years ago, the Clean Elections Act provides state funding of legislative and gubernatorial campaigns if a candidate can obtain enough citizen support, based on $5 individual contributions, to qualify for the funding. This election year the cost of the program is estimated to be $3.7 million.

Members of the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee, which has oversight of the program, suggested a five percent reduction in what a candidate receives, and that led to a discussion Sunday whether there could be a greater reduction or outright elimination of the program. The five percent cut would provide $276,000 towards the budget hole of nearly $200 million.

“None of us wanted to go higher than the five percent because of the ramifications it would have on the clean elections law,” said Rep. John Patrick, D-Rumford, the co-chairman of the committee. “We did talk about going to maybe a ten percent one-time cut, but there are concerns what that would do to the law.”

But Sen. Karl Turner, R-Cumberland, a member of the Appropriations Committee, questioned whether the state can afford the program in the long run, given his expectation that the budget problems facing the next Legislature will be as severe as those of today.

“We could have 15 candidates for governor in the primaries and who knows how many independents in the fall with the party candidates,” he said. “I think there needs to be discussion about whether we can afford that.”

The panel took no action but asked that options be developed for consideration at a later work session of the panel.

Throughout the weekend, the panel took dozens of votes, but all are tentative and could be reversed or modified. Fischer said the votes are an indication of where the committee wants to go with closing the state budget shortfall, but are preliminary.

“The bottom line is none of it is final until we take a final vote and send it out of committee,” he said. “But the votes we have taken so far stand for the principles, in a bipartisan way, that the committee agrees with.”

Once the committee has gone through the hundreds of separate budget items and made initial decisions, Fischer said they will need to look at the bottom line and see the size of the remaining “budget hole” after all the savings and spending actions are considered.

“I think we will be pretty close,” he said. “If there are marginal revenues that need to be raised in a nonbroad-based way, I think that is where we will be looking to close this thing up.”

One example where lawmakers went where the governor did not was an incentive fund set up to encourage county and local governments to find ways to deliver services more efficiently. The committee has voted to take $650,000 of the $750,000 in the fund.

On Sunday, committee members voted to mitigate the cuts to the judicial branch by the creation of a new fee to be imposed when lawyers file for a summary judgment in a case. It is expected to raise $1 million over the remainder of the two- year budget and reduce the red ink facing the courts to $3.8 million. Chief Justice Leigh Saufley said even with the new revenue, the courts will be making cuts.

“We will likely not have to close any courthouses,” she said. “We will certainly have to make staff cuts. We will certainly have reduced court security.”

Unlike most of the budget, which often has very detailed items, the courts as a separate branch of government get an appropriation to cover all of their needs. It is up to the chief justice, as the administrative head of the judicial branch, to establish the detailed budget.

Saufley said last week that courthouses in Madawaska, Millinocket and Bridgeton were on the list for closing if the courts had to meet the entire $4.8 million budget target.

On Saturday, the panel agreed to cut aid to elementary and secondary education by the $34.1 million proposed by Gov. Baldacci. They did not agree on how the cut should be distributed, and that is still under discussion.

While accepting some of the governor’s proposed cuts to human services programs, the panel voted against several cut proposals such as prescription drug coverage for poor, single adults and the elimination of personal care attendants for some adults with physical disabilities.

Many of the votes were on small budget items, like $10,000 for the Maine Special Olympics. The governor had proposed cutting the entire $20,000 appropriation for the program, but the panel voted to provide $10,000.

“I don’t want to read that the Legislature refuses to put money in for the Special Olympics,” said Sen. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake. “It would be a great headline that someone is going to use.”

Panel members expect to work into the evening again Monday seeking a bipartisan consensus on a revised spending plan.