Long hours, touchy negotiations and difficult decisions characterize the work of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee in the waning hours of its work on the biennial budget.
Completion of the task has been somewhat of an elusive goal, but as of yesterday morning the committee had narrowed its to-do list from hundreds of items to just a couple dozen.
“We are down to a small number of big chunks of money,” said Rep. Emily Cain (D-Orono) the House chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, during an interview Wednesday morning. “There are fewer than 20 issues remaining, but they’re big ones.”
One of those issues is to what degree state employees will be asked to absorb some of the cuts needed to equalize spending with the revenues that are expected in the next two years. Governor John Baldacci, in response to a revenue re-projection last month that widened the biennial budget hole by $569 million, proposed 24 government shutdown days, freezing merit salary increases and requiring new employees to pay 15 percent of their health insurance premiums.
The committee spent Wednesday morning discussing various alternatives to those initiatives, including a proposal by Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell (D-Vassalboro) last week.
Instead of the shutdown days, Mitchell proposed eliminating paid holidays so that the burden of the cuts would be borne by everyone, not just non-essential employees.
Another alternative under consideration, proposed Wednesday by Rep. John Martin (D-Eagle Lake) was to come up with an across-the-board figure of what is needed in salary and benefits cuts, and then to let the unions negotiate how to achieve that figure.
“We’re still looking for the ability to try to fill the gaps in the budget hole and pull the budget together on all the fronts,” said Sen. Richard Rosen (R-Bucksport) to other members of the Appropriations Committee Wednesday. “We’re still trying to look for what we’ll require for savings (from state employees).”
Other issues that haven’t been agreed upon include proposed cuts in subsidies for dairy farmers and adjustments to the state’s tax code. Baldacci proposed freezing income tax brackets so they don’t adjust with federal inflation rates, which he estimated would save approximately $32 million over the next two years because people across income brackets will pay a slightly higher percentage.
Cain said there is disagreement between the parties on that issue, with Democrats “reluctantly” supportive and Republicans against. But everyone is committed to continuing to work together.
“The fact that everyone is still at the table is important,” she said. “It gives me hope that we can close the budget together.”
Sen. Bill Diamond (D-Windham) the Senate chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said during an interview that the process has reached the point of negotiations between the parties.
“It’s just one of those issues that’s going to come down to time pressure,” he said.
The committee is struggling to finish its work so that the budget can be sent to the full Legislature for passage as soon as possible. Money for the state’s Medicaid program has run out, meaning the Legislature needs to pass a budget in the next week or thousands of service providers across the state will miss payments.
Cain said she was hopeful the budget would be out of committee by late Wednesday night, but she conceded that sometime Thursday was more realistic.
