AUGUSTA, Maine — The Legislature’s top Democrats have reached a deal to undo changes pushed through by their party colleagues on the budget committee by restoring transportation funding, maintaining a pension tax break and boosting milk prices for Maine dairy farmers.
Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, described “consensus” fixes and other changes to the addition to Maine’s two-year budget in an early Saturday news release that said the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee may consider them “in the coming days.”
The budget committee has a meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday.
The news release did not mention any other Democrats by name other than “legislative leaders” but effectively signals a reversal of several moves suddenly made by budget panel co-chair Rep. Melanie Sachs, D-Freeport, this month during a long and contentious committee hearing.
Those initial changes, which the committee approved along party lines around 3 a.m. on April 6, included shifting $60 million a year from the transportation budget to the broader General Fund, giving the appropriations panel — rather than the Transportation Committee — authority over the transportation budget and scaling back a pension tax break for retirees.
The decisions quickly drew criticism from Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who had lauded last year’s bipartisan compromise to dedicate $200 million annually to the Highway Fund, along with Transportation Commissioner Bruce Van Note, Republicans and state workers, among others.
Jackson indicated he and other Democratic legislative leaders reached a plan to no longer pull money from the transportation budget, though his statement did not mention the additional idea to give the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee control of the highway account.
The “consensus” plan will also restore the pension tax break approved last year that raised it from $30,000 to $35,000 this year before continuing to increase it annually to the equivalent of the maximum Social Security benefit.
Lawmakers are also expected to increase milk prices under a state relief program to at least 25 percent of the updated costs of production — a plan that Mills, the Legislature’s agriculture committee and dairy farmers supported before Democrats on the budget panel voted April 3 to instead cover about 10 percent of the gap along with a one-time payment of $7 million.
The news release from Jackson’s office also said lawmakers will likely approve language to ensure York Hospital does not lose its current funding and pay more taxes as a side effect of MaineCare reimbursement rate reforms included in the governor’s budget changes, and legislators will vote on a new compensation and classification system aimed at closing the state employee pay gap amid widespread vacancies.
The Senate also approved Friday evening a disaster relief bill amendment from Sen. Rick Bennett, R-Oxford, that includes a plan from Rep. Ed Crockett, D-Portland, to raise educational technician pay to 125 percent of the state minimum wage and other school support staff pay to 112.5 percent of the minimum wage. Those raises will cost about $7.72 million in fiscal year 2025 and about $7.95 million in fiscal year 2026.
That amendment also rolls in Jackson’s proposal to get $5 million more for Maine Veterans’ Homes, $30 million for crisis receiving centers, mobile mental health response units, medication management, suicide prevention and violence prevention initiatives proposed by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, and $31 million from the surplus for nursing homes struggling throughout Maine.
That spending was tacked onto the governor’s original bill to take $50 million from the “rainy day fund” and use it to rebuild infrastructure damaged by severe storms in December and January, with an additional $10 million approved for businesses hurt by the storms.
Bennett’s amendment specifies that no more than $30 million must be used for infrastructure projects related to wharves and piers that support commercial fishers and aquaculture businesses, with the rest going to non-coastal projects helping inland areas.
The veteran Republican got his amendment through the Democratic-led Senate in a 20-13 vote that was unusual in the sense that it passed without the support of most majority party members. The only Democrats in the 22-member caucus to back it were Sens. Mike Tipping of Orono, Tim Nangle of Windham, Craig Hickman of Winthrop, Nicole Grohoski of Ellsworth, Ben Chipman of Portland, Donna Bailey of Saco and Joe Baldacci of Bangor.
