By Michael Shepherd - March 29, 2023
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📷 Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, speaks at a news conference on abortion on Jan. 17, 2023, at the State House in Augusta. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

Good morning from Augusta. Here's the legislative committee agenda for Wednesday. Lawmakers return Thursday to vote on the two-year budget.

What we're watching today

Democrats and Republicans are warring over taxes, making it difficult to see a long-term solution. The Friday move from legislative Democrats to push a $9.8 billion budget to the chamber floors for votes set for this Thursday has been the subject of a Republican public-relations offensive since then focused on a tax-cut offer that the majority party set aside.

Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, played defense in a Tuesday radio appearance on WVOM, repeating his party's case for passing a budget with no new programs by the end of this month in a repeat of their 2021 move that bypasses the usual consensus process of passing budgets in Augusta.

While he said repeatedly that the parties could negotiate on taxes later this spring when considering at least $400 million in money in Gov. Janet Mills' original proposal, he seemed cold to Republican ideas on the topic, saying he did not think they even "understand what their tax plan does."

"If they actually would look at it, it actually gives people under $23,000 a year $70. That's all it does," Jackson said. "It does give people that are making a million dollars, $10,000."

The latter figures came out of left field. The plan that Republicans shared out of the broken-down Friday talks calls for at least $200 million set aside in the budget for low- and middle-income tax relief, and Senate Republicans said at a Tuesday news conference they were looking at reducing the bottom rate.

Jackson's office did not immediately respond to a Wednesday question on his characterization, but Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, telling reporters it was "a flat-out lie" on Tuesday.

"Nobody was ever talking about that except for Troy, who was trying to put those words in our mouth," Stewart said.

Republicans were similarly upset when Democrats breezed by them to pass a budget two years ago, although they joined the majority party to revise that agreement later on. Conservatives including Maine Policy Institute CEO and BDN columnist Matthew Gagnon are urging them to sit out completely.

Both Stewart and House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, are saying they are not optimistic about bipartisan tax relief later this spring. Faulkingham told WVOM he expected Democrats to focus on property tax programs that would send money back to Mainers rather than the focus he preferred: not taking it in the first place.

This sets up a predictable series of votes on Thursday, when Democrats will ram the budget through and Republicans will protest. Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, already tweeted out a floor amendment that would change Maine's license plate motto from "Vacationland" to "Taxationland."

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News and notes

📷 Children are picked up by their school bus in Poland following a day off due to a winter storm on March 15, 2023. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

🍏 Schools will get more aid after Maine discovers a $42 million math error.

◉ A "duplicative data entry" issue led the Maine Department of Education to overestimate a key figure that helps set state aid to K-12 schools, a state official said in an email to districts on Tuesday.

◉ The major error is actually good news for many districts. On net, nearly $42.4 million more in state aid will go to them, including $3.6 million in Portland, more than $800,000 in Lewiston and nearly $900,000 in Bangor. That will partially offset the contribution of local taxpayers to schools. No district will get less money, but many of them will see no increase. Here's the data.

◉ The effect of the error on the two-year state budget is unclear. The original calculations date back to January. An education department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question on the budget.

⛏ A referendum question's wording goes to the high court.

◉ The Maine Supreme Judicial Court will assemble Thursday to hear a battle between supporters of a 2023 referendum question that would put Maine's electric system under the control of an elected board and the state. The dispute is over the question's wording.

◉ Secretary of State Shenna Bellows' office drafted a question that hews more to the utilities' preferred framework, proposing to ask voters to create a "quasi-governmental" power company. Proponents of the power takeover won a lower-court decision this month directing the state not to use that term.

◉ Bellows is appealing the decision, and justices will hear that case at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday. Read the filings.

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What we're reading

⛪ A Bangor church sued the state over a new law requiring it to accept LGBTQ students and staff to get public funds.

☣️ Just five companies released the vast majority of toxic chemicals in Maine in 2021.

🧒 A day care put this Maine mom on a wait list, so she started her own.

⚔️ U.S. Sen. Susan Collins supports repealing Iraq war powers.

🏆 More moose calves are surviving tick infestations. Here's your soundtrack.

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