AUGUSTA, Maine — After Maine lawmakers once again held off Tuesday on taking final votes on a short-term budget that would fill a $118 million MaineCare deficit, Senate President Mattie Daughtry and Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart met privately in Daughtry’s office.
Both leaders declined to get into specifics on what they discussed, but they made clear they are at least talking about what could help the Democratic-controlled Legislature pick up Republican votes to pass a supplemental budget so it takes effect immediately rather than 90 days later.
The odds of the budget receiving a two-thirds majority appear low after the Maine Senate avoided voting Tuesday on enacting the plan the House of Representatives passed along party lines last week. In once again delaying final votes after plenty of back-and-forth bickering, Democrats may pass the short-term deal with a simple majority when members return next Tuesday, or four weeks since initial votes on the budget stalled in the face of no GOP support.
“We’re continuing to have conversations,” Daughtry, D-Brunswick, told a reporter after her Tuesday meeting with Stewart.
“We’re trying to figure it out,” Stewart, R-Presque Isle, said later Tuesday.
Gov. Janet Mills met with Democratic and Republican leaders to urge them to pass a plan with two-thirds support so it takes effect immediately. Unless “somebody magically comes in with a deal,” Daughtry noted, the state will start next week to withhold MaineCare payments to hospitals and health providers. The state’s health department said it will seek to reduce the strain by capping and delaying certain payments.
“Inaction by the Legislature is now putting the budgets, and patients, of health care providers across Maine in jeopardy,” Mills spokesperson Ben Goodman said. “This was unnecessary and preventable.”
The supplemental budget proposal also includes $2 million to fight spruce budworm infestations in Maine forests. Spraying budworm larvae in 300,000 acres of northern Maine forests has to happen in May, Daughtry said. With the budget increasingly looking like it won’t take effect until June, that could mean “catastrophic damage to the forest industry,” Daughtry added.
The supplemental budget process appeared smoother in early February, when the Legislature’s budget committee and its three Republican appropriators initially OKed the plan before the minority party turned on the deal.
Key sticking points have been an annual three-month limit on General Assistance per recipient that Republicans want and Mills initially sought before telling lawmakers it could come back up in ongoing two-year budget negotiations.
Republicans also want work requirements for MaineCare recipients who do not have children, a virtual non-starter for Democrats but an issue President Donald Trump may revive at the federal level after former Gov. Paul LePage sought such requirements.
The Mills administration had also suspended cost-of-living adjustments for direct care workers in the short-term budget despite lawmakers previously passing a law to require the pay bump. More than 400,000 Mainers use the state’s Medicaid program that saw its $118 million funding gap come as the result of increasing enrollment, greater use since the COVID-19 pandemic and other cost increases due to workforce and inflationary challenges, per the Mills administration.
Various rank-and-file members deferred to leadership for comment Tuesday but said they heard Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, and Sen. Sue Bernard, R-Caribou, were discussing what could get more senators on board with the supplemental budget. Rotundo and Bernard did not comment Tuesday, with the Senate offices deferring to their leaders.
The next floor session is scheduled for Tuesday, by which time Daughtry said “we’ve got to do something.” She also said the broader policy disagreements should come in the ongoing two-year budget talks and before committees rather than in the supplemental process.
“I also believe that we need to come together on this,” Daughtry said. “And I am going to be trying anything and everything to get it [across] the board while making sure that we’re looking out for Mainers.”
