November 23, 2024
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Budget panel revamps spending package

AUGUSTA – Trying to stimulate new negotiations, the Appropriations Committee on Thursday gave legislative leaders a new mix of spending proposals.

Sen. Jill Goldthwait, the Bar Harbor independent who serves as a co-chairwoman of the panel, said committee members had “somewhat reluctantly agreed” to forward a reworked package.

“There is not the level of enthusiasm that there was” for the panel’s first effort, which won an overwhelming endorsement in the House of Representatives in late March only to be substantially rewritten by the Senate a day later, she said.

The latest committee version would accept a standing Senate demand of no new tax increases, at least for now. It would also provide a 5 percent increase in state aid to local schools next year, but put off a decision on adding another 3 percent the next year.

After initially leaving alone school technology money that Gov. Angus King hopes to maintain as a permanent endowment fund, the appropriations panel now is suggesting a transfer of $15 million for other purposes – still much less than the Senate plan to tap the entire $51.5 million available.

The new committee proposal also would close all 27 of the remaining state liquor stores. To date, the Senate has insisted on a more modest approach that could leave open the fate of 13 stores.

State institutions of higher education would stand to receive the same level of increases that the Senate has proposed for next year, but instead of an additional 2.5 percent in the following year could count on only flat funding.

The new committee proposal also does not include several other Senate provisions, including a Social Security offset for retired military personnel and an increase in the level of municipal revenue sharing.

Committee members have indicated some issues could be reconsidered in a subsequent bill designed to finance new and expanded services. At the same time, several have said further compromising should come from the Senate.

Goldthwait and the House chairman of the committee, Democratic Rep. Randall Berry of Livermore, said separately it was unclear how legislative leaders, particularly in the Senate, would respond.

Both also made clear that committee frustrations with Senate treatment of the budget linger.

Goldthwait, noting the length of time that budget legislation has remained inactive in the Senate and the approaching onset of the new budget cycle, said it no longer is feasible for any party in the dispute to try to wait out another in hopes of winning a showdown.

“This isn’t a war. I would prefer a war. This is like a hunger strike,” she said.


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