By Michael Shepherd - March 18, 2022 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up.
Good morning from Augusta.
What we're watching today
A bigger surplus spending plan may come today. How high will it go? Gov. Janet Mills has proposed spending about $1 billion of Maine's projected $1.2 billion surplus through mid-2023 on a plan dominated by $750 relief checks, $100 million for roads and bridges, aid to health care providers and a free community college program for recent high-school graduates. But it is about to get bigger with lawmakers putting on more upward pressure.
The Democratic governor's office announced Thursday she would add nearly $20 million more for a behavioral health system hammered by pandemic work shortages and associated backlogs. That will draw a nearly matching amount of federal funding for a bipartisan priority in an area that clearly needs help. But there are many other such priorities that are awaiting funding.
One of the biggest is a $100 million fund to fight environmental and health effects of forever chemicals on agricultural land that was endorsed unanimously by a legislative panel on Thursday. The Mills administration supported that bill, though the governor's office said only that she was "strongly considering" adding funding to her budget proposal to address the goal. She will also add $3.5 million in a bid to keep two veterans homes open in Machias and Caribou.
Add those to Mills' supplemental budget and Maine begins to test the upward bound of the surplus estimate before we take into account cost-relief ideas recently presented by lawmakers, like tax rebates floated by Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and Republican proposals to suspend the gas tax. Mills has neither embraced nor ruled out those ideas yet.
Suddenly and somehow, $1.2 billion doesn't look like much money compared to legislative goals. Mills has signaled caution so far about pushing the package much higher, but she will likely not try to slash relief checks after recently pushing them higher due to an upward surplus revision. While surpluses have continued to beat projections here fueled by federal aid, personal income growth has been all over the map in states lately and budget forecasters here have begun to revise down longer-term projections.
We are expecting Mills to roll out her package of budget changes as soon as today. What she adds and how she does it will be one of the final fiscal tone-setters for lawmakers ironing out her proposal. We will then have an idea of what lawmakers could reasonably add and what might be tougher sells.
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What we're reading
— Bus and train ridership, slashed early in the COVID-19 pandemic, has not recovered in Maine, which was already heavily reliant on vehicle travel. Read more from the BDN's Jessica Piper on how operators are responding.
— The superintendent of the Old Town-based district had not dealt with a request to ban a book from a school library in more than 45 years as an educator. Then a parent complained about "Milk and Honey" by Rupi Kaur.
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9:30 a.m. The appropriations committee will meet with lawmakers on the education panel and then the health committee to discuss recommendations for Mills' supplemental budget bill. Watch here.
10 a.m. Affordable housing measures are up for work sessions in the Labor and Housing Committee. Watch here.
1 p.m. The budget panel will return to work on key policy measures before it in 2022: a Republican proposal to regularly give back surpluses to Mainers and Democraticones aiming to bar governors from holding back voter-approved bonds like former Gov. Paul LePageonce did. Watch here.
📷  Lead photo: Gov. Janet Mills finishes tapping a maple tree with Scott Dunn, president of the Maple Maple Producers Association, at the Blaine House, Friday, March 11, 2022, in Augusta. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)
