AUGUSTA, Maine — The memo announcing Gov. Paul LePage’s state government hiring freeze and his attack on the media’s reporting on the issue is the convoluted story of the week in Maine politics.
“I hope you don’t condone the message that’s out there about cutting 20 percent of the labor force and having a hiring freeze so I can make more cuts,” the Republican said Tuesday on WVOM. “I can’t believe how incorrect the news are in Maine.”
The reporting on this is pretty straightforward, coming from LePage administration sources and documents. Here’s how we got here.
Two memos provided to reporters started the chatter on employee cuts and hiring freezes. LePage complains about the 20 percent figure being cited, but it comes from a memo from his own deputy chief of staff that was first reported by the Portland Press Herald last week. It outlines three goals for 2017’s two-year state budget, including LePage’s desire to trim the number of state employees to 9,500.
LePage has said he could achieve his goal by eliminating vacant positions, but that doesn’t add up. His budget department says there are 13,286 executive branch positions authorized now, with an employee count of 11,808. That’s 2,300 employees more than 9,500, which means layoffs would be needed to cut the state workforce this deeply.
On Monday, the Bangor Daily News obtained a July 18 memo saying LePage was “directing that all new executive branch hiring cease until further notice” in state government. It said requests to fill vacant positions will be routed through LePage’s chief of staff and require approval from the governor.
LePage took issue with the characterization of the “hiring freeze” on the radio, saying media “don’t check their facts,” and while he’s trying to “right-size government” he has recently approved some hires. But nothing he has said — including in a WGME interview meant to “set the record straight” — has contradicted reporting on the issue.
His administration has indicated a group of employees that could be affected by cuts. The BDN went deeper on LePage’s state employee goal Sunday, after Adrienne Bennett, his spokeswoman, said the administration will be “assessing and evaluating the value of” 2,400 limited-period positions in state government “as we move forward.”
The administration provided no further information on those positions, which are classified by law as having effective end dates because of federal funding arrangements. But data provided by the Maine State Employees’ Association, which represents 2,200 of them, show they’re baked into Maine’s bureaucracy.
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These positions are routinely renewed, and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services has more than 1,000 of these workers. The Department of Labor has more than 400. Two have worked for the state since the 1960s.
After that story, labor department spokeswoman Julie Rabinowitz said there are only 40 limited-period positions considered temporary by the department — 12 of which are vacant — and that departments have “solely interpreted” LePage’s call for an examination of these positions to affect that smaller category of jobs.
But Rabinowitz is the only administration official saying that. Bennett and David Heidrich, a budget department spokesman, didn’t respond to a message seeking clarification Wednesday.
However, LePage seems to be talking about the wider group, discussing limited-period positions in an interview with WGME on Tuesday and a memo to state employees saying that he has asked commissioners to “assess all positions based on the value of the program or service they provide to Mainers.” LePage also said he’s reviewing all federal grant applications and renewals.
“The lowest-valued programs and services,” he said, “may result in a nonrenewal of those positions.”