AUGUSTA, Maine — A legislative committee created to examine how Maine uses $50 million a year in tobacco settlement funding disbanded Monday with its mission unfinished because, according to lawmakers, Gov. Paul LePage’s administration did not cooperate.
The committee — created this year by the Legislature — voted unanimously to order the Department of Health and Human Services to produce annual reports on where exactly $50 million a year in the Fund for a Healthy Maine is flowing as well as data about how effectively that spending affects public health in Maine.
Republican and Democratic leaders of the committee — which voted unanimously to adjourn Monday without making major recommendations — agreed that the outcome could have been better with more participation from the executive branch.
“We felt as a committee that we didn’t have enough of the information necessary to comfortably make recommendations,” said Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn, the committee’s Republican co-chairman. “If I could go back and do it all over again, I don’t think I would support the study.”
Brakey said one of the recommendations made on Monday was a provision that would force the Legislature to eliminate at least two annual studies from DHHS in exchange for adding the new one.
Rep. Drew Gattine, D-Westbrook, House chairman of the committee, said he was pleased that the committee voted to compel DHHS to resume issuing annual reports on the Fund for a Healthy Maine — which were stopped in 2011 — because that will help future legislatures make better-informed decisions about funding allocations. However, that recommendation requires approval from the Legislature when it reconvenes in January.
“Our work was impacted negatively by a lack of information,” said Gattine. “it would have been a lot more effective if the department had shown up and participated.”
The committee was created earlier this year after the unanimous passage of a bill that went into law without LePage’s signature. It derived, in part, from concerns that the Fund for a Healthy Maine, which draws money mostly from the proceeds of a 1998 class-action lawsuit against the tobacco industry and racino revenues, had strayed from its intended purpose. In 1999, the Legislature created the Fund for a Healthy Maine and assigned a list of acceptable uses, which range from fighting smoking and obesity to subsidizing child care.
Earlier this year, LePage proposed using some of the funding to support primary care services for Medicaid participants, but that provision was not supported by the Legislature and was removed from the state budget.
Concurrent with the legislative committee that dissolved Monday is a push by Republican lawmakers to have the Government Oversight Committee launch a probe of the program through the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability. The Government Oversight Committee meets Thursday and is scheduled to consider the investigation.
OPEGA already investigated aspects of the program. In 2009, the nonpartisan watchdog agency found that “there does not appear to be a process for periodically reassessing fund allocations to the various health-related efforts to assure the fund as a whole is advancing the state’s health vision and goals in the most cost-effective manner.”
Last month, DHHS told the committee that the department has already provided much of the information sought and that it would not participate in the committee’s work other than providing written responses to questions.
“Using department staff time to revisit testimony and reports is neither tenable nor practical,” said Nick Adolphsen, the department’s director of government relations and policy, in an Oct. 13 email to the committee. “The department’s position is clear on the Fund for a Healthy Maine and we have provided more than ample staff assistance and information on the program during recent legislative sessions.”
DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew reiterated in a written statement that the department wants more of the fund’s money spent on primary care, particularly for Medicaid patients.
“The Legislature chose to ignore those recommendations and instead continue to support funding for posters and pamphlets while tobacco use for Medicaid members is a staggering 43 percent for that population,” Mayhew said. “State government needs fewer studies and meetings and more action by lawmakers in eliminating wasteful spending and reprioritizing resources.”
