BANGOR, Maine — Members of a City Council committee voted 3-2 on Monday night to advise the full council to repeal its minimum-wage ordinance despite concerns about Gov. Paul LePage possibly trying to thwart a statewide wage hike passed at referendum last month.
Finance Committee members Ben Sprague, Daniel Tremble and Cary Weston decided that there was reason enough to support the local ordinance’s repeal since the state increase would supersede it. Committee members Sean Faircloth and Sarah Nichols opposed.
But all nine members of the full council, who were present, seemed to agree that LePage and other opponents of the statewide wage increase might find ways to subvert the law passed by referendum. Under the Maine Constitution, governors are required to issue proclamations reaffirming election results and state law changes about 40 days after a referendum, City Solicitor Norm Heitman told the councilors.
LePage “could take no action and force it into court,” council Chairman Joe Baldacci said Monday.
Faircloth added that while it was very unlikely, he was concerned that the new Legislature could water down the state law, thereby leaving the Bangor ordinance better for city residents.
LePage, who could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday, has not said he would attempt to prevent the minimum wage law from going into effect, but has made no secret of his opposition to the initiative.
Under state law, a city minimum-wage ordinance can supersede a state law if it pays more than the state’s. Councilors have said they expected to have to repeal their new ordinance if the state passed its hike.
Under the new state law, which passed with about 55 percent of referendum voters in support, the state’s minimum wage — currently $7.50 an hour— will increase for the first time since 2009, to $9 per hour in 2017. It then continues to grow to $12 by 2020. The council voted 7-2 in December 2015 to raise it in Bangor to $8.25 per hour in 2017 with gradual increases that set it at $9.75 per hour in 2019.
The city ordinance is due to go into effect on Jan 1. Heitman told councilors that state law would likely allow the state wage increase to occur effective Jan. 8.
The council’s strategy for dealing with the issue rests on timing.
If the council opts to pursue repealing the ordinance, it would make that decision at its next meeting, on Dec. 12, and have the required second reading of the repeal order and vote on it on Dec. 28. That, and the required 10-day waiting period before the city repeal went into effect on Jan. 1, would be enough time for councilors to hold an emergency meeting to reinstate the ordinance should it be necessary.
Councilor Gibran Graham, a nonvoting member of the committee, had a simpler take on the issue. The council, he said, promised a wage increase effective Jan. 1 and should keep its word.
“To renege on that is doing a disservice to this city,” Graham said.