AUGUSTA, Maine — Governor Janet Mills on Monday filled in the financial gaps left from here State of the State Address two weeks ago.
In that speech, Mills spoke about plans for some added spending on critical needs.
At a Monday press conference, the Governor outlined details of a $126 million supplemental budget package she said will increase savings, protect the health and welfare of Maine people and add to workforce training and economic development.
It also will rekindle the debate over how much state government should spend, which Mills appeared to be addressing in opening comments.
“The supplemental budget, I think, should demonstrate fiscal restraint,” the Governor said.
She explained that it includes putting another $20 million into the so-called Rainy Day fund, bringing the total Mills Administration contribution to that fund, so far, to $50 million.
It also provides funding to add 20 more child protective workers in the Department of Health and Human Services., and 14 more state troopers—10 patrol troopers and 4 sergeants, increase the state share of local school costs to 52 percent and invests in new equipment for career technical schools.
The budget also calls for new bonds to borrow $100 million for highway work and $15 million for broadband expansion.
The Governor said the spending is needed, to meet needs Maine people have asked about.
“You know, public safety is important, child welfare is important, wastewater treatment is important,” Mills told reporters. “That’s what you hear from the people of Maine. They don’t want to see another child's death. They don’t want an hour-plus delay in a trouper getting to a crash scene to save somebody’s life, they don’t want to see that.”
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Republican leaders say the budget spends and borrows too much, a complaint they have made since the passage of the current, two-year budget last June.
“It didn’t take long to realize we spent every nickel that’s coming in about all I’ve got to say money burning a hole in people’s pockets and we spent all of it,” Senate GOP leader Dana Dow said.
The state has a projected budget surplus of roughly $120 million. The supplemental budget would use all of that, plus about $6 million of a $13 million transfer from an account in the state treasurer’s office for payments on bonds not actually sent to voters.
The supplemental budget now goes to the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee., which will also consider several hundred other requests from Legislators to use the surplus for other priorities. Leaders in both parties spoke about increasing pay for home health and other direct care workers, an issue important to nursing homes, which was not listed in the Governor’s priorities.