Hundreds of Maine’s military personnel and National Guard members will receive pay raises under the national defense bill Congress is expected to pass ahead of 2025, with businesses and bases here also poised for millions through the annual spending package.
The roughly $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, includes a 4.5 percent pay increase for all personnel starting Jan. 1 but also an extra 10 percent boost on top of that for junior service members in the first targeted raise for specific grades of troops in decades.
It is one of the more tangible changes for Maine in the 1,813-page bill the House of Representatives is expected to vote on this week before the Senate takes it up next week, with Congress typically approving the annual Defense Department budget in bipartisan fashion.
Still, negotiations over the package ahead of President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House in January featured some tension after Republicans included a ban on the military’s health care program covering certain gender dysphoria treatments for children but dropped other culture-war ideas, like gutting diversity programs and an abortion travel policy.
Maine has roughly 12,300 personnel spread between National Guard, reserve, active duty and civilian categories. A Maine National Guard official said Tuesday the 14.5 percent raise would represent “good news” for about 500 of its roughly 1,700 soldiers, ranging from an average of an extra $40 a month for the lowest-ranking soldiers in the private or “E-1” rank to about $60 a month for specialists in the “E-4” rank, with those same soldiers seeing raises of about $300 to $450 a month if moved from traditional drilling status to full-time orders.
As a smaller state that ranks 10th nationally for its defense spending making up 4.6 percent of its gross domestic product, Maine has an array of defense contractors and a flagship university that also stand to benefit from the NDAA. They range from well-known firms like Bath Iron Works that will build an additional Arleigh-Burke destroyer for the Navy to smaller businesses like US Felt in Sanford that supply big contractors.
Larger items for Maine in the next defense budget include an extension of the $26.1 million for perimeter security improvements first authorized in 2021 for the Navy’s Detachment Cutler in Washington County. The base along Maine’s coast handles communications for submarines and other military fleets at sea.
The Maine Air National Guard base at Bangor International Airport also will receive $48 million for a new fuel cell hangar. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery that is on Maine’s border with New Hampshire is set to get more than $400 million for a dry dock extension and $28.7 million for power plant improvements. The Southern Maine Readiness Center in Saco that serves Army and Air National Guard members will receive $1 million for design work.
Maine’s congressional delegation noted the defense bill benefits all 16 counties in the state. For example, while most of the defense funding flows to York County due to the shipyard’s presence in southern Maine, Aroostook County has hundreds of civilian personnel.
Ahead of the House vote this week, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a progressive who represents the 1st District in southern Maine, said in a statement she is glad the bill includes funding for shipbuilding and pay increases but alluded to Democratic concerns over the inclusion of language targeting medical treatments for transgender children of service members.
“My team and I are continuing to thoroughly review the text, but the hateful language inserted into this historically bipartisan, must-pass legislation — and the dangerous precedent it sets — cannot be overlooked,” Pingree said.
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a moderate Democrat representing Maine’s 2nd District, said in a statement Tuesday the pay bump for junior members “will be one of the biggest accomplishments this year.”
“The NDAA is also a major catalyst for Maine’s production economy, and this deal doubles down on that investment,” Golden said.
