AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage has vetoed a bill that aims to pump about $2.4 million to Maine’s county jails this year to help avert fiscal crises in a number of counties.
The one-year funding proposal represents a short-term fix for cash-strapped county jails, which are supported with a max of state allocations and money raised from property taxes.
In his veto letter for LD 1614, LePage repeated his assertion that Maine’s jail funding formula — which divides responsibility between counties and state government — does not work.
“If the counties are responsible for operating the jails, the counties should also be responsible for paying the cost of jails,” LePage wrote in the veto letter.
The current system caps what counties can spend on jail operation, which LePage said creates an unfair burden on state taxpayers. County budgets are prevented from growing more than 3 percent per year under state law.
“For too long, state taxpayers have had to pick up the tab for the cost of the county jails because, due to the cap, there is no incentive for counties to rein in jail spending.”
LePage said he would support a supplemental jail funding appropriation only if it included an elimination of the county spending cap.
Democrats criticized the veto, saying that LePage’s position would be unfair to property taxpayers.
“The governor is suggesting that the Legislature should impose a tax shift on to local communities,” said Rep. Lori Fowle, D-Vassalboro, House chairwoman of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
Legislators will return to the State House on April 29 to vote on this and other vetoes LePage has issued since the Legislature recessed early the morning of April 16. The jail bailout bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Kim Rosen of Bucksport, passed without a roll-call vote in the Senate and cleared the House with a 115-32 final enactment vote.