The Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee crafts the budget proposal to be sent to the full Legislature for consideration. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
“Please get it done,” Gov. Janet Mills told lawmakers in a letter Wednesday morning, the day the Legislature is set to adjourn, urging both chambers to pass the supplemental budget and her original version of an emergency storm relief bill.
On Monday, the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee reopened voting on the budget plan it had previously set around 3 a.m. a week prior, reversing proposed cuts after objections from the Republican minority, some Democrats and Mills.
These changes were not enough to sway Republicans to support the Democrats’ budget plan, but the committee struck the emergency preamble, which allows the budget to pass with a simple majority, essentially nixing the need to get Republicans on board.
However, Sen. Rick Bennett (R-Oxford) added much of the Republican minority’s additional asks to a heavily amended version of a storm relief bill Friday night. The storm bill was originally introduced by Mills, who sharply criticized the amendment for entangling unrelated spending into what she intended to be a separate, emergency measure to help with rebuilding after consecutive storms this winter.
In a bipartisan vote, the Senate approved the amended storm bill, which attaches funding for a multitude of other issues already being considered in separate bills this session, notably mental health and nursing homes.
But Tuesday night the House bypassed the Senate’s proposal by instead introducing their own amendment. The House amendment reverts the bill almost entirely back to the original version brought to the floor — but removes the bill’s emergency clause.
This means the money would not be distributed until July 1, when the new fiscal year begins, rather than immediately — that is if the Senate agrees. The bill is currently in nonconcurrence and was tabled in the Senate on Wednesday morning.
“The Senate and the House have two starkly different views about it,” Bennett said Wednesday.
In her letter to the Legislature, Mills wrote that she would veto the bill if it gets to her desk as amended by the Senate.
“The amendment added to my bill by the Senate, then appropriately removed by the House, is a last-minute, multimillion dollar change crafted outside the budget process,” Mills wrote. “It does not comport with the supplemental budget.”
Mills wrote that she will sign LD 2225 if it solely includes the $60 million in storm relief and reiterated that she will also sign the supplemental budget as passed by the Appropriations Committee, despite her concerns about its fiscal sustainability in the next biennium.
When asked about Mills’ continued concerns about additional spending beyond what she’d proposed in the budget plan, Appropriations Committee co-chair Rep. Melanie Sachs (D-Freeport) told Maine Morning Star that she stands by the budget as her committee approved it.
“We worked in consultation with our colleagues and the Mills administration for a budget that meets our obligations to our Constitution and to Maine families and communities,” Sachs said.
As of noon on Wednesday, neither the House nor Senate had taken up the budget for votes.
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