Budget sent on despite division

AUGUSTA – Capping a grueling string of work sessions, the Appropriations Committee ended up Friday where in hindsight it was most likely to be all along.

Split along party lines, the panel failed to narrow two approaches for covering a $190 million revenue shortfall in the state’s $6.3 billion biennial budget down to one.

Majority Democrats, after some bumpy discussions with Gov. John Baldacci, pushed through their revision of his original budget-balancing plan Thursday night with the Democratic governor’s approval. It is expected to go before the full Legislature next week.

“The vast majority of the budget was built through bipartisan consensus, but we remain strongly committed to our principles as Democrats,” House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, said in a post-midnight statement.

“We were deeply concerned with the damage that would be done to our state by some of the proposed cuts. We worked to restore funding for higher education for our students and our state’s future, and to restore critical health care services to

BUDGET

honor our moral responsibility to protect the well-being of our citizens,” Cummings said.

Republican Rep. Patrick Flood of Winthrop, an Appropriations panelist, echoed the Democratic speaker in saying both sides had come close but “can’t quite get the last little bit.”

Citing a tally by the Legislature’s Office of Fiscal and Program Review, the Democrats said the committee had voted to reject $27 million in cuts to Human Services. The Democratic statement went on to say that the committee had accepted $65 million in cuts that would result in a loss of $135 million in federal matching funds.

“This budget makes many significant and painful cuts to Health and Human Services that we wish were not necessary, but it rejects the most egregious of the cuts and restores some funding to domestic violence, foster parents, higher education, and health care for seniors and adults in poverty and more – without raising any taxes,” Cummings said.

Minority Republicans effectively gave up on negotiations aimed at an overall budget compromise late Wednesday night.

A key sticking point described by both parties included:

. An adjustment in the base year of a tax on net hospital revenue worth $11 million that could offset a proposed reduction in reimbursements for hospital-based physicians, which was favored by Democrats and opposed by Republicans.