AUGUSTA, Maine — Democratic lawmakers started advancing an $11.3 billion state budget Thursday over Republican opposition after a short-term deal to bail out MaineCare fell apart earlier this month.
It represents another case of Democrats who narrowly control the Legislature using their majorities in recent years to pass spending plans without GOP votes needed for the spending to become available immediately. Instead, the budget will go into effect by the start of the new fiscal year on July 1 if Democrats and Gov. Janet Mills enact it this month and then technically adjourn the body before returning for more work into this summer.
The Maine House of Representatives initially passed the plan 74-69 on Thursday, with the budget heading to the Senate before additional votes. Republicans opposed the budget, citing how Democrats bypassed them and the treatment of funding issues in the Medicaid program.
The first phase of the 400-page budget includes what was in the failed supplemental budget — funding to fill the $118 million MaineCare gap and $2 million to fight spruce budworm infestations amid the state starting this month to withhold and cap certain payments to health providers and the spraying of budworm larvae needing to occur in May.
It holds most other programs at their current funding levels, although it implements a 1.95 percent cost-of-living adjustment for direct care workers and maintains free community college for Maine students. Democrats are likely to try to pass a budget addition later this spring.
The most controversial aspect of the document is how it treats MaineCare. While it bails out the program facing major cost and enrollment overruns, it does not continue that increased funding into the second year of the budget.
Rep. Drew Gattine of Westbrook, a top Democratic appropriator, said the decision to only fill the MaineCare deficit for one year relates to “uncertainty” on Capitol Hill around Medicaid funding.
“One of the most important things this bill does is provide stability and certainty,” Gattine said in a Thursday floor speech.
While making annual a 3.25 percent tax on acute care hospitals that lawmakers passed a few years ago, the budget does not include the controversial $1 per pack increase in Maine’s cigarette tax, child care cuts and other tax hikes Mills pitched in her $11.6 billion, two-year plan through 2027. That is likely to be debated among other Democratic priorities later this year.
Mills had proposed a supplemental budget for the current fiscal year that fills the state’s Medicaid program deficit, but after the plan initially looked to have bipartisan support, Republicans turned on it last month while insisting Democrats add in annual General Assistance limits and MaineCare work requirements for the program serving more than 400,000 Mainers.
The Legislature had failed to enact the short-term budget during each of the past few Tuesday floor sessions, before the Senate finally let it effectively die last week, although Republicans and Democrats in the House agreed to pass an amended version with General Assistance limits.
Democratic leaders then quickly moved ahead with the “continuing services” plan last Friday. However, Republicans complained about how the amended plan takes out the General Assistance limits on housing support while only including language to expand training for program administrators. GOP appropriators also argued they had little time to review the new plan before Democratic appropriators advanced it Friday night.
“We’ve become Washington,” Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, a former House minority leader who helped turn his caucus last month against the short-term budget, said. “We have become the definition of dysfunction.”
Ahead of the statutory adjournment date in June, lawmakers will now shift their focus to passing more bills and adding more to the state budget, though Democrats’ own figures show they are leaving only about $127 million in projected unspent revenue across two years.
