AUGUSTA, Maine — Legislative Democrats may need to pull their budget plan after criticism from Gov. Janet Mills, Republicans, transportation interests and some of their own members for raiding funding for roads and bridges.
The spending plan that Democrats passed along party lines in the Legislature’s budget committee after 2 a.m. Saturday looked like it had unraveled by Monday, when Gov. Janet Mills’ office issued a statement noting “significant concerns” with the plan.
The most controversial items in the document championed by Rep. Melanie Sachs, D-Freeport, would partially undo a landmark transportation funding deal and an expanded pension tax break, two bipartisan items that Mills championed when they passed last year.
It may be one of the biggest political miscalculations in five years of full Democratic control of Augusta. Opponents ranged from the progressive state employees’ union to construction companies. Mills’ veto power over the plan effectively made it dead on arrival. It was also clear by Monday that some rank-and-file members were neither aware of the plan nor backed it.
“I expect there’s enough concern that there could be a number of people who voted against the budget if this remains in it,” Rep. Bruce White, D-Waterville, a centrist who sits on the Legislature’s transportation committee, said of the changes in that area on Monday.
The plan led by Sachs, the budget panel’s co-chair, amounted to a power play by a progressive crop of legislative Democrats against the more restrained Mills. The governor’s latest proposed spending addition would grow the state budget by $96 million while setting aside roughly $107 million out of fiscal caution. Liberal interests have criticized that given record reserves.
Democrats did not discuss their major changes in public until the late-night series of Saturday votes. Their transportation overhaul would have swept $60 million annually in transportation funding and put the budget panel in charge of crafting the highway budget, sidelining the Transportation Committee that works on it now.
That night, Transportation Commissioner Bruce Van Note told lawmakers that he had not seen the plans, and they would likely reduce the number of projects that his department could fund. On Monday, he noted that every state dollar in the system is matched by $3 in federal funds, meaning potentially severe effects and a need for borrowing at a time of record revenue.
“So unpredictability just went up,” he said in an interview.
Both Van Note and Sen. Brad Farrin, R-Norridgewock, a member of the transportation panel, said Democratic legislative leaders were considering scrapping the budget plan on Monday. Neither Sachs nor spokespeople for House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, and Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, responded to requests for comment.
The Monday statement from Mills’ office criticized members of her party for the transportation and pension changes as well as a bailout for struggling dairy farmers that was significantly scaled back from the administration’s initial plan, which rankled the industry.
“She urges the Legislature to reconsider these ill-advised changes, to avoid creating new programs that will require ongoing funding, and to advance a fiscally responsible budget that is sustainable in the long-term,” Mills spokesperson Ben Goodman said.
The plan passed in the wee hours of the night between a major snowstorm and what was virtually a holiday weekend because of the total solar eclipse passing over Maine on Monday attracted opposition from Maine Service Employees Association, which criticized lawmakers for balancing the budget “on the backs of retired state workers and teachers.”
The Democratic-aligned state employees’ union was joined by construction interests, with Kelly Flagg, the executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Maine, hitting Democrats for a “continued lack of transparency and commitment to repairing our state’s critical infrastructure.”
“You can’t condone bad behavior, and then you wonder why people don’t trust politicians,” Farrin said.