Serving on the Maine Legislature’s budget writing committee requires long work hours, an eye for detail and a lot of patience.
Throughout a legislative session we sat through hundreds of hours of public testimony, dozens of reports from department heads and many late nights debating each and every line in the state budget to reach the very best compromise possible. No one walked away with everything and no one walked away with nothing.
When Gov. LePage chose to use his line-item power to veto the general assistance portion of the budget recently, after a very strong bipartisan vote of support in both the House and Senate, I believed my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would come back to stand up for the process and product we all worked so hard for.
Instead, Republican lawmakers have gone back on their word and rubber stamped the governor’s ideological line-item veto through their failure to act to reconvene.
The veto is a “shift and shaft” to property taxpayers. The bipartisan agreement prevented an 8 million dollar budget shortfall in the state’s general assistance reimbursements to towns from being shifted to property taxpayers. It restored nearly $5 million to the governor’s cuts.
Now property taxpayers will have to foot the bill, especially here in Bangor. Our mayor recently said at a city council meeting that $1.1 million will be coming out of taxpayer’s pockets one way or another if the ruling from the governor wasn’t changed.
Towns and cities are legally obligated under both state and federal law to provide general assistance benefits to those who are eligible. Many municipalities are finalizing their budgets now with the fiscal year about to end and they cannot wait until mid-May for the Legislature to possibly do its work.
The veto will impact all 490 municipalities in Maine. The veto creates a hole of nearly $5 million that will mean the state won’t have enough money to reimburse any municipality under the current formula. In this recession, more of our neighbors have had to temporarily rely on general assistance just to stay warm or keep a roof over their heads. Cutting the reimbursement from the state won’t stop the need.
By not showing up to work to consider the veto when the procedures are prescribed, the Republicans have chosen to ignore the rules and forfeit their responsibility. This is especially troubling to me and gives me doubts as to whether I can trust my colleagues to stick with any other agreement we strike. Negotiations only work when both sides can take the other at their word.
Lawmakers will also be working on the Department of Health and Human Services budget in May and we must make sure the general assistance agreement we came to is included in that budget.
The Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee has passed five bond proposals to invest in improving our roads and bridges, creating research and development jobs and opportunities, improving our water and wastewater treatment and preserving the natural resources on which our economy depend. Will those agreements to create jobs in our state stand if Gov. LePage doesn’t like the proposals we came up with?
The committee voted out five separate proposals, breaking with the traditional process for crafting one single bipartisan bond package for the Legislature to consider sending to voters. Were they set up to give the governor a menu of options to reject? Were they set up to fail?
When the Republican controlled Legislature refused to reconvene so all of the elected members would be obligated to cast a vote either supporting or overriding the governor’s line item veto of the critical municipal general assistance, our trust was broken. Politics was put before the best interest of the people. Now that decision hangs over our other good-faith compromises in Augusta.
These sorts of actions are analogous to political maneuvering typically seen in Washington. Republicans and Democrats have a tradition of compromising that separates us from the political gridlock in the nation’s capital. Unfortunately, the people most hurt by all of the politics will be Maine families.
State Rep. Sara Stevens, D-Bangor, serves on the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee and is serving in her second term in office.
It all comes down to one thing and one thing only. It is called trust. You may be a fan of Democrats, Republicans, Independents or Greens but when an agreement is reached, especially by the vote margins that this one was reached, both sides need to know that the other will keep their word as far as the agreement is concerned. In this case the Republicans didn’t. The Republican leadership, Kevin Raye and Bob Nutting, basically thumbed their noses at the legislators who worked to craft this agreement and by extension the people who voted those legislators into office in favor of continuing to be lap dogs for the most unpopular Governor in the history of The State of Maine. When we as citizens go to the polls to cast our ballots for the candidates of our choice we are placing our trust in them to do the right thing. We will be paying more in property taxes as a result of Mr. Raye and Mr. Nutting bowing down to the wishes of Paul Richard LePage. Mr. Raye has already started on his campaign to become the US Representative from Maine’s second congressional district. He , undoubtedly, will ask the citizens of the second district to place their trust in him. Republican members of the legislature and new Republican candidates will also ask voters to place their trust in them in this falls election as well. In November it will be up to the voters, a lot of whom pay property taxes, to determine who they trust and who they do not. By the actions taken by Republicans on the line item vetos they have shown they can not be trusted.
Sara, the days of compromising with the Republican Party ended when they allowed themselves to be taken over by the Heritage Policy Center/ALEC/Tea Party. These paracites have all but gutted the once healthy Republican Party. Come November there will be a change in the Legislature. Until then, you can trust that anything that the Republican/MHPC/ALEC/Tea Party says will have to be vetted by Governolr LePage. The above mentioned part of the Legislature seems to have lost any credibility.
Any talk of compromise is hilarious coming from the Maine Dems, the party that shut down the legislature and then called a fake emergency session at a cost of over a half million tax dollars just so they could pass a simple majority budget without Republican input.
At least they called a session for a vote by all members of the Legislature. Nothing annonymous about that.
This is the first i’ve heard from Sarah Stevens in 2 years, and she’s been on the appropriations committee the whole time!? So when we’ve had all these questions about the budget process, she’s remained silent until it’s better for her politically to speak out. Politics as usual from the democrats.
Lame irrelevant reply not worthy of comment. Fits glove to hand with our soon to be lame duck, irrelevant gubner.
This is just the typical strategy of, “If you can’t dispute the facts try to discredit the speaker”.
Everyone needs to calm down about the effects of the veto on Bangor. The Governors proposal that would cost Bangor money was never passed. The changes to GA are still being discussed. This article by Stevens is political grandstanding. The Bangor City Council is crying wolf without the correct facts. Maybe the BDN show do a story that explains the situation. It might require work and research….maybe even journalism.
Gatta agree with you there. Even this little snit letter from Sara is long on prose and far short on content. Maybe I will send a donation to ALEC if they influenced ol’ Lepage to be courageous enough to be the first to exercise the veto.
The BDN’s idea of research is cutting and pasting a Democrat press release.
Do you actually trust the statements made by Raye and Nutting. Notice they did not give any supporting evidence for their claims. They merely stated, without proof, that it was a majority of their party that said they did not want to return. The way they handled the situation hides who went back on their word, their vote. The public does not know who the flip-floppers were, so the entire party has lost its credibility both with the public and with its fellow legislators. LePuke, in the mean time, goes on disparaging state workers in the harshest possible way, without specifics, without evidence, without an apology. Notice a pattern here? Stay tuned for more of this “transparent” administration.
When the Republican’s start holding ‘secret poll’s’ you can pretty much be assured that this isin’t the only thing going on. Nutting and Raye did this in full view of both the Democrat’s and the public, claiming it was ‘A Party’ decision. Fine, which Party ? MHPC, ALEC, Tea ? That Nutting held the ‘Party’s poll’ tells me that the GOP, now completely dominated by the right-winger’s, is apparently content to tell the voting public that they are just a bunch of dumb folk’s whose opinion and interests don’t count. Fine, keep it up and see how far you get. One only needs to see how the Local Selectmen and Town Council’s recent voting at Annual Meeting’s has gone to see the inevitable wave of change coming. November is A LOT closer than anyone realizes !
Kevin Raye is publicly running for the Senate seat open with Oly retiring. The Senate is desperately in need of the ability to reach concensus under negotiation and compromise. Raye’s apparent philosophy is ‘Screw’em since I, King Kevin am the only one who knows what’s best’. So much for Raye’s willingness to discuss and debate in order to reach a compromise. It’s also interesting to note that no where in this has Suzie Collins been seen or heard. Say what you will, she’s no dummy and she can see where this train is headed already. This alone should tell the State GOP something !
As far as Nutting goes, well, his position on all of this was seen when he held the ‘secret poll’ and told the public, and the rest of the Legislature, that he was going to keep any debate or negotiation from happening simply because he said so. Sir, arrogance, in an election year, is literally telling the public that they are moron’s and that you are their Sole and Divine Savior. By what divine revelation or right does he, and by way of the democratic process, the State GOP suddenly decide they know more or better than the citizen’s who are the electorate ? This action by Nutting, and whatever cabal he belongs to, are now on the first step toward a landslide defeat. And with the State GOP’s Chairman, Charlie Webster, now being under the microscope, given his massive fumble of the Washington County caucus’s and the persistent feud between the 2 GOP Candidate’s camp’s, the GOP has to be looked at as one very short step away from being either Maine’s version of SNL or being, literally, run out of the State on what little railservce Maine still has going since they can’t make up their mind. November can’t come soon enough for all of us so sanity and common sense can be restored to Augusta, not mention the rest of the Country.
No towns and most cities will not see any drop in funding. The four largest cities in Maine that might be losing some of their current high level of funding do not have to keep spending the way they are for GA. Just maybe they should start to rein in this program that has grown out-of-control over the past several years. Property tax payers don’t have to put up with city managers giving the way the farm.
Have the state make the GA program voluntary for the towns and cities would be a good start. Keep the control local, stop unfunded mandates.