AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. John Baldacci on Friday unveiled an austere two-year state budget that includes plenty of pain for everyone and guarantees lively debate in the State House in the months ahead.
The $6.1 billion state spending package proposes deep cuts to address an $838 million shortfall from the recession and increased costs of providing services. It would eliminate 219 state positions, requiring 139 layoffs, trim some state tax rebate programs, transfer 118 inmates to privately run prisons and raise natural resources agency fees.
“We are in the midst of a national crisis, the likes of which have not been seen in a generation,” Baldacci said at his State House presentation, in which members of his Cabinet formed a backdrop. “Our country is mired in a recession. We are all called upon to do our part to get through this difficult time.”
The spending package for the budget period starting July 1 is so tight its bottom line is $200 million smaller than the current $6.3 billion budget, Baldacci said. It’s the first time that has happened at least since 1974, according to an administration review of state records going back that far.
Despite the depth of the cuts, Baldacci said, he took great care to protect core government functions such as police emergency services, and vulnerable populations including children, elderly and disabled. Much of the budget carries through reductions the governor already has proposed in a revision to the current year’s spending package.
“Our safety net is frayed, but it’s not broken,” he said.
While calling for a 2.4 percent reduction in higher education funding, the budget leaves K-12 public school funding near its present level. It does not call for increases in sales or income taxes, but seeks $4.1 million from increased fees charged by the departments of Conservation, Marine Resources, and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Taxes from sales of smokeless tobacco also would be increased.
The budget seeks temporary reductions of 10 percent in the Circuit Breaker, Business Equipment Tax Reimbursement and Tree Growth programs, and state-municipal revenue sharing. But Baldacci said the Homestead Exemption property tax program remains untouched.
Baldacci said there will be temptations to raise broad-based taxes, but this is not the time to do it because the economy is already putting Mainers under financial strain.
While continuing a state hiring freeze, it asks some state employees to pick up more of their health insurance. The budget factors in what Baldacci called conservative estimates of anticipated federal funding for MaineCare, Maine’s Medicaid program.
No reduction is proposed in the ranks of state troopers, game wardens or Marine Patrol officers. The budget seeks new money for childhood immunization and preparation for a possible flu pandemic, and maintains the red tide monitoring program. State funding for gubernatorial campaigns under Maine’s Clean Election Act is not as high as previously booked.
Corrections takes a hard hit in the two-year budget, which calls for elimination of 39 positions in the department. Combined with the 25 proposed in the budget revision for the current year, the department would lose 64 jobs. It would save money by shipping 118 prisoners with long sentences and minimal family ties in Maine to privately run prisons in other states, where the daily cost per prisoner is less.
Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnusson said the budget wouldn’t close any prisons completely but would continue closing units within several of the facilities. It envisions double-celling more inmates at the Maine State Prison to add 84 beds.
Magnusson acknowledged that the inmate-transfer provision encountered serious opposition when it came up before as a way to ease crowding, but said the stakes are different this time and he would not presume how lawmakers might react.
Legislative leaders from both parties promised to scrutinize the budget to make sure it protects Maine’s most vulnerable residents and provides jobs and opportunities for Mainers.
Republicans pledged to work in good faith with the governor and the Democratic majority “to craft a responsible budget that reins in the unsustainable growth of state government,” said a statement by Senate Minority Leader Kevin Raye of Perry and Assistant Minority Leader Jon Courtney of Springvale.
Democratic House Speaker Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, said it appears cuts go across the board, and added that many difficult choices will have to me made.
“These are not ordinary times,” said Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro. “Spending cuts of this magnitude will require all stakeholders to commit to a new way of doing business; one that focuses on shared responsibility and shared sacrifice.”