AUGUSTA, Maine — To the delight of lawmakers and the Maine Department of Transportation (DOT), the state's highway budget will now have reliable and sustainable funding.
Governor Janet Mills signed the budget into law Friday morning after it passed through the House and Senate with overwhelming support this week.
The budget bill gained the needed votes after Republican lawmakers worked with the Mills administration on a comprise and after a key amendment was drafted by Democratic Senator Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston.
"The safety, economic opportunity, and quality of life of every Maine person just took a big step forward today," Maine DOT Commissioner Bruce Van Note said after the signing Friday.
Van Note said securing this funding has been in the works for close to 20 years since he took over as the Department's Commissioner.
Funding for the budget will come from 40 percent of the 5.5 percent sales tax on vehicle purchases and 40 percent of sales and use taxes from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The funds are expected total $100M each year.
Governor Mills also said Friday the budget will allow the state to secure nearly $1B from federal funds.
Legislators from both sides of the aisle stood behind Mills as she inked the budget that they say is "historic."
“It’s been a real collaborative effort and that’s what you need when you're doing to do these big things," Representative Wayne Parry, R-Arundel said.
Parry is the House's ranking member of the Legislature's Transportation Committee. He said using taxes from vehicle purchases and the BMV makes sense to fund transportation projects.
While Mills and her administration have made a push to repair hundreds of bridges and thousands of miles of roads across Maine, this budget will also fund other sectors of the industry like bus and ferry services, airports, and maritime ports.
The budget signing also came before a July 1 deadline that would have paused some projects around the state.
Senator Ben Chipman, D, Cumberland, the Senate Chair of the Transportation Committee, said this will also provide certainty to DOT and BMV workers as this funding will allow their projects to move forward.
"[This is the] largest transportation budget in the history of Maine, lots of great work we’ll be able to do over the next few years as a result," Chipman added.
Chipman did previously vote against the budget bill, but he joined all other members of the Senate in passing it unanimously after the new amendment was added.
Chipman's counterpart Senator Brad Farrin, R-Somerset, said this new funding will allow the state to do "full-depth reconstruction and start really building back our roads."
While there was certainly a moment of celebration, Farrin, Chipman, and other lawmakers said this is a good step forward, but more work needs to be done to secure even more long-term funding.
Every year the DOT creates a three-year plan and in years past, Van Note said it was hard to budget for projects due to not knowing if money would be available.
"And for the first time we’re going to have something we can rely on," he added.
According to the DOT, the current plan includes 302 bridge projects, 1,178 miles of preservation paving and more than 2,000 miles of light capital paving, 271 miles of highway construction and rehabilitation, and 264 highway safety and spot improvements.
Farrin said the state has $265M in unmet transportation needs and future legislative work will need to continue to cover all those costs and complete all the state's proposed projects.