AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage is reviewing the funding of a victims’ rights advocate position for Maine’s first cold case squad, and its backers are concerned that the job will go unfilled, officials said Wednesday.
Sen. Linda Valentino, D-Saco, said LePage received the one-page financial order funding the position with $64,417 on Nov. 4. He had not signed it as of Wednesday, said Timothy Feeley, spokesman for Maine Attorney General Janet Mills, with whom LePage has clashed repeatedly.
“I am hoping that he just hasn’t gotten to it yet. I hope it is not a repeat of something that has happened previously,” Valentino said Wednesday.
LePage spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said the governor will be meeting with Mary Mayhew, commissioner for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, in the next several days to clarify some questions he has.
“It is unfortunate that Sen. Valentino is making assumptions when she doesn’t have all of the facts. The cold case squad is something that the governor has supported,” Bennett said Wednesday.
The advocate’s position is funded through DHHS by a grant from the federal Department of Justice Victims of Crime Act, which is intended to increase the ability of states to meet the needs of crime victims, according to the state Executive Department Financial Order.
Valentino said her suspicions were aroused by the apparent delay. The governor signed many financial orders last month, and earlier this year refused to sign several coming from the attorney general’s office, said Valentino, who described orders as tools used routinely to allocate money within state government.
LePage has been on vacation or out of state for most of the last three weeks, Bennett said. He is a featured speaker at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s States and National Policy Summit on Thursday in Scottsdale, Arizona. He attended a Republican Governors Association meeting in Las Vegas last week and also took a week’s vacation, Bennett said.
LePage has repeatedly sought more drug agents on Maine’s streets to fight an influx of heroin that has plagued the state lately, with 105 Mainers dying of drug overdoses in the first half of 2015. Early last month, he renewed a pledge to use the Maine National Guard to stem the drug trade if legislators don’t act.
LePage had opted to not fund the cold case squad in his proposed budget before a bill sponsored by Valentino, a member of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, directed to the squad what eventually became $491,662 annually. The bill passed as part of this year’s state government budget.
LePage did not oppose the squad but felt that drug agents were a higher priority, Bennett has said.
Mills announced the creation of the position in an appropriations committee hearing on Nov. 5, saying the advocate would address communication lapses between state officials and the families of victims.
Some families had not heard from state police or the attorney general’s office in decades, said Patrick Day, a volunteer advocate who has acted as liaison for the families related to the victims of 63 of the approximately 120 homicide or missing persons cases the squad is being formed to investigate.
Mills said she hoped the advocate would start by Dec. 1. Day said the delay is disappointing.
“I wish the governor would sign off on this and take care of this. It is absolutely a needed tool for the families as well as the detectives working on the unsolved cases,” Day said Wednesday. “This advocate will work directly with families so that detectives don’t have to take up valuable time dealing with the families. They can work on investigative things.”
State police appointed a lieutenant to oversee the squad part-time last month. They will hire the squad’s two detectives within the next several days, said Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland.