Across-the-board cuts of 10 percent in the state budget would eliminate dozens of positions and reduce numerous program services, but that’s what’s being explored by the Baldacci administration in the face of nose-diving revenues.
Ryan Low, commissioner of the Dept. of Administrative and Financial Services, is the person who will lead a weeks-long examination of those proposals.
“This one is probably going to be the most difficult budget year we have gone though in four budgets with Gov. Baldacci,” Low said. “In almost all cases, we’re facing a substantial structural gap.”
The state’s revenue picture will begin to emerge this week with two meetings of the Revenue Forecasting Committee, which is scheduled to make long-term predictions in November.
Those numbers will be crucial in determining what the next two-year budget, which begins on July 1, 2009, will look like. By most accounts, the Legislature faces a structural budget gap of some $500 million, which means that’s how much must be cut from current services to make ledgers balance, regardless of inflation and rising costs.
“We do not feel we are immune from national financial problems,” Baldacci’s Deputy Chief of Staff David Farmer said. “We expect it to get worse.”
Low said Monday he had spending proposals in hand from every state agency except the Dept. of Health and Human Services, which was still working on its submission.
According to documents provided by Low on Monday, both high- and low-paying jobs are at risk. In Low’s own department, he would lose a public service coordinator position who works with child care providers, a senior personnel analyst, a programmer analyst in the state controller’s office and a budget analyst.
Other proposed cuts include the following:
Maine Revenue Services would lose five positions, four of them earning $50,000 or more per year.
Funding for several reimbursement programs, including the homestead exemption and veteran’s tax reimbursements, would be trimmed by 10 percent.
Attorney General G. Steven Rowe wrote that a typical assistant district attorney prosecutes over 1000 cases a year, but the 10 percent cuts would eliminate nine of them plus another seven assistant attorney general positions. “There is no doubt that the loss of these positions would have a serious impact,” wrote Rowe.
State parks would be hit severely, losing park rangers and managers across the state, plus some 23 lifeguards.
Services to veterans would be reduced and burials in the new Southern Maine Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Springvale would be limited. A $300 fee would be added for dependent burials at all Maine veterans cemeteries.
The Dept. of Economic and Community Development would lose two positions, on top of four positions that have been cut since July 2007.
The Dept. of Education would trim several programs and services and freeze General Purpose Aid for education at current levels. In fiscal years 2009 and 2010, that equates to a $170 million to $190 million cut in education funding, which would fall far short of the 55 percent total share of education costs promised by the state.
The governor’s office would lose or reduce several positions, including a full-time director of communications position. These cuts have already been enacted.
The Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife would lose numerous positions, including 10 game wardens and several scientists.
In the judicial branch, 10 percent cuts would close eight to 10 of the state’s 40 courthouses, reduce staffing and cutting back the days courts are open by two to four weeks per year.
The Dept. of Marine Resources would lose several positions, including marine wardens and scientists. The department has also proposed increases on a wide range of licensing fees in an effort to increase revenues.
Maine Maritime Academy would bear $1.77 million in cuts in travel, purchasing, maintenance and personnel.
In the State Police, the cuts would eliminate the canine team and the underwater recovery team as well as 24 trooper and four detective positions. There would also be a loss of several other department positions.
The Maine Community College System would lose over 30 programs, approximately 1800 students and approximately 80 faculty and staff.
Low said these cuts would be drastic, but the fact is some will be enacted and some won’t between now and the end of the legislative session in June.
“If these were easy decisions, we would have done them six years ago,” he said. “I would not characterize these as proposals, but the departments are taking the governor’s 10 percent exercise very seriously. We’ve just started looking these over.”
Baldacci is due to submit his budget proposal to the Legislature Jan. 9.
While work continues on the budget for the next biennium, the current budget has by no means been finalized.
Baldacci has raised the possibility that due to wilting revenue projections, he might call for a budget curtailment, meaning he’ll rein back spending of dollars that have already been budgeted and appropriated for the current fiscal year.
“Curtailment is not an easy process to start,” Low said. “The governor wants to be out ahead of this thing (before the November Revenue Forecasting Committee meeting). It’s safe to assume with the downturn we’re seeing in revenues, curtailment is certainly an option.”
(Statehouse News Service)
