Inflation, energy prices and women’s health care are among the top issues in Maine’s gubernatorial race. But Democrats are highlighting municipal budgets as another important concern.
While previously serving as governor, Republican Paul LePage made cuts to a state program that shares revenue with towns and cities. It’s a policy that Democrats said forced municipalities to reduce services and raise property taxes — and they warn it could happen again if LePage is elected.
Maine has shared a portion of its revenue with towns and cities for five decades. And Bev Uhlenhake, vice chair of the Maine Democratic Party and former mayor of Brewer, said that funding is critical to pay for essential services, including police, fire, first responders and schools.
“And because those services, if not funded by municipal revenue sharing, would be funded by property taxes, the revenue sharing also provides property tax relief across the state of Maine,” Uhlenhake said.
But while she was mayor of Brewer, Uhlenhake said she had to increase property taxes because LePage reduced the state’s revenue sharing to 2 percent. Democratic Rep. Thom Harnett, and former mayor of Gardiner, said it was a 60 percent reduction, which hit his small city hard.
“So what did that mean for Gardiner, a small city of about 5,900 people? In the six years that I was mayor, Paul LePage took away $3.2 million in revenue sharing,” Harnett said. $3.2 million over a six year period.”
“We referred to them as raids,” said Kate Dufour, a spokesperson for the Maine Municipal Association.
Dufour said LePage’s cuts to revenue sharing left communities with three choices: limit services, increase property taxes or a combination of the two. Most, she said, did a combination.
“And you saw some programs where they were eviscerated,” she said. “People were laid off. We weren’t providing as many services to our communities, or they were limited in nature. Ya know, libraries weren’t open five days or six days a week. We rolled back on our law enforcement officers.”
Gov. Janet Mills has restored revenue sharing to the full 5 percent, as required by state law. It’s a move that LePage criticized in an interview in August on Portland radio station WGAN.
“Revenue — she’s saying or talking about revenue sharing at 5 percent,” LePage said. “Well, why don’t we right-size our schools and right-size our governments? And then we could literally lower property taxes, and they wouldn’t need revenue sharing.”
LePage campaign spokesperson Brent Littlefield dismisses the concerns raised by the Democratic former mayors, saying LePage has a track record of lowering taxes without cutting services when he was mayor of Waterville.
“That is called real fiscal responsibility,” Littlefield said. “And I guess that is something that none of these Mayors have learned.”
As for whether Republican municipal leaders favor cuts to revenue sharing, Auburn Mayor Jason Levesque said rather than weighing in on a specific policy, he’d like to see a holistic review of state funding.
“It would be a comprehensive reform of the entire way our government works, or the interaction between the state and local level,” Levesque said.
Dufour of the Maine Municipal Association said the state and municipalities had a strong partnership prior to LePage’s revenue sharing cuts. It’s a relationship, she said, that’s only recently been rebuilt.
This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
