The majority of the Senate casts an initial vote in favor of the supplemental budget plan on Feb. 11, 2025. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
The Maine Legislature’s Democratic majority voted through a budget change package on Tuesday to address the state’s imminent Medicaid funding gap, but without Republican support, that funding will not be available until May and could still mean the state will have to withhold payments from providers.
The House voted 74-71 and the Senate voted 20-14. As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, both chambers still need to cast enactment votes, and senators broke to caucus to consider an amendment that, if it garners enough support, would send a new version of the budget bill back to the House.
Republicans vowed to vote against the supplemental budget late last week after previously reaching bipartisan agreement when Rep. Kenneth Fredette (R-Newport) tried to cast a late vote against the plan and came up against procedural hurdles that prevented him from doing so.
The procedural restriction that had a hand in the unraveling of Republican support was amended in the joint rules with unanimous votes in the House on Tuesday, aimed at preventing such a kerfuffle in the future. The Senate has yet to take it up.
While Republican opposition to the budget plan on Tuesday included objections to procedure, it also centered on the removal of Gov. Janet Mills’ proposed cuts to General Assistance, among a litany of other requested changes aired in a slew of proposed Republican amendments on the House and Senate floors Tuesday.
All of those amendments have so far failed, except for one that remains in limbo while the Senate broke Tuesday afternoon. The high chamber is expected to return Tuesday evening.
Sen. Marianne Moore (R-Washington) proposed an amendment to include a modest cost-of-living adjustment for the current fiscal year for essential support workers, after the Mills administration notified providers in December that anticipated increases would not be coming — a move providers and lawmakers argue is a violation of state law.
“What is the actual point of any of this if the governor can just decide she’s not going to do something that we put into law,” Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook) said.
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The initial votes on the supplemental budget indicate passage with a simple majority in both chambers, meaning it would not be able to immediately take effect upon the governor’s signature. That would require two-thirds support.
If the simple majority votes stand, the Legislature would be looking at taking the procedurally necessary but largely symbolic step to technically adjourn for the year, starting the clock to allow the budget to take effect 90 days after that adjournment.
The Mills administration notified health care providers about the potential need to withhold payments on Monday if a two-thirds budget is not secured, reiterating the warning given earlier to legislative leaders and the budget committee.
“Unless the trajectory of legislative action changes, the department will need to temporarily withhold certain payments from providers starting in March in order to ensure that at least a percentage of claims are paid until the department receives sufficient funding,” the administration wrote. “The exact date that payments will need to be withheld will be determined in the coming weeks.”
Benjamin Mann, deputy commissioner of finance for the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, told lawmakers during public hearings on the supplemental budget that there was enough funding to continue payments roughly until May.
Republican attempts to amend plan
While the key purpose of the short-term budget fix is to close the funding gap for MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, the plan also includes other urgent initiatives, including funding to prevent spruce budworm from damaging forests. However, the plan tackles fewer issues than Mills initially requested.
Republicans attempted to reinstate some of Mills’ proposals — notably limits to General Assistance, which helps municipalities pay for basic necessities for those who can’t afford them — with floor amendments on Tuesday.
All amendments in the House failed and the one Senate amendment proposed so far remains in limbo. A motion to indefinitely postpone that amendment narrowly failed 16-18.
In the time between the House’s passage of the budget and the Senate vote, Mills released a statement telling Republicans she will instead push for the General Assistance changes in the two-year budget, a switch her administration earlier signaled it supported.
“Republicans would be wise to support passage of the supplemental budget now and ensure that Maine health care providers receive the payments they need in a timely way,” Mills wrote. “Once the supplemental is done, I will join them in vigorously pushing for much-needed reforms to General Assistance — something that I agree needs to happen — during negotiations on the biennial budget.”
Two other proposed amendments from Republicans targeted the state’s new Paid Family and Medical Leave Program, which took effect on Jan. 1.
Rep. David Boyer (R-Poland) proposed requiring state employees to pay part of the premium costs.
Mills initially proposed assisting public education institutions with these costs in the supplemental, but the budget committee removed it.
Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn) separately proposed making the paid family leave program and the payroll tax that funds it optional.
Boyer and Libby also proposed changes to Maine’s free community college program, which Mills is seeking to make permanent with allocations in her biennial budget plan.
Boyer proposed amending the program to only apply to Maine high school graduates, as it is also available to people who have recently relocated to Maine. Libby proposed repealing the program altogether.
“Free college on the backs of Maine taxpayers is not a right,” Libby said.
Republicans also sought to add new measures to the budget plan.
With a series of amendments from Rep. Jack Ducharme (R-Madison), Republicans tried to instruct the state to request a waiver from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to temporarily freeze enrollment for able-bodied, childless adults and to eventually create a permanent program cap, as well as another waiver to institute work requirements for such people to access MaineCare. None of the amendments received enough support to pass.
“This is a major policy change that really should be in its own bill,” Rep. Drew Gattine (D-Westbrook), who co-chairs the budget committee, said of the proposed amendments.
The downfall of bipartisan agreement
Before the chambers voted on the budget plan, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spoke to the urgent need to close the projected $118 million MaineCare gap, which the Mills administration attributes to increased use of the program following the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and workforce challenges.
Rep. Michele Meyer (D-Eliot) said lawmakers received urgent pleas from hospitals to pass the budget as an emergency measure that would take effect immediately. Hospitals don’t have the fiscal tolerance to absorb reductions or delays in payments, Meyer said.
While Democrats called on their Republican colleagues to reconsider their opposition, Republicans called for reconsideration of the budget plan. In the House, Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) said, “February 11th is way too early to give up on compromise.”
In the Senate, Stewart made a motion to refer the budget bill back to committee for reconsideration, however it failed 14-20. Senate Assistant Minority Leader Matt Harrington (R-York) said, “The emergency we need to talk about here is Maine’s broken welfare system,” referring to MaineCare, General Assistance, among other assistance programs.
February 11th is way too early to give up on compromise.
– Maine House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor)
Reiterating a joint statement shared by House and Senate Republicans Tuesday morning, Faulkigham also criticized, in particular, the removal of limits to General Assistance from the plan.
Mills proposed limiting housing assistance, except for temporary housing and emergency shelters, to a maximum of three months per household over one year, as well as limiting municipalities from exceeding the maximum levels for all assistance categories for no more than 30 days per household over one year.
“This supplemental budget is critical to Maine’s future,” House and Senate Republicans wrote. “However, Democrats failed to demonstrate even a basic level of fiscal responsibility. Democrats must acknowledge there is a problem that got us here before we can begin to solve it. Simply put, they don’t want to pass a supplemental budget with Republican support.”
While Republican opposition to the plan was apparent Tuesday, that had not always been the case.
Budget committee co-chair Peggy Rotundo (D-Lewiston) said on the Senate floor Tuesday that the committee had been aiming to close the budget by the end of January but extended the deadline to consider new initiatives sought by Republican members. What resulted, Rotundo said, was an initial agreement to push consideration of those new items to the biennial but add to the supplemental changes to how state departments report information to the Legislature, including regarding MaineCare.
On Tuesday, Stewart and Sen. Sue Bernard (R-Aroostook), who sits on the budget committee, characterized the late night agreement as a take-it-or-leave it proposition from Democrats, whereas Democrats, including budget committee member Sen. Cameron Reny (D-Lincoln), described it as a bipartisan compromise that also doesn’t include everything Democrats wanted.
Budget committee members on both sides of the aisle had voted to remove the limits to General Assistance and many other initiatives from the supplemental proposal when the committee set the plan just after midnight last Wednesday morning. At that time, Republican budget lead Ducharme praised the committee’s bipartisan work.
Soon after, apparent harmony disintegrated.
In response to Republican frustration over a recent rule change that prevented Fredette from casting a late vote against the plan, the House on Tuesday passed a proposal from House Majority Leader Matt Moonen (D-Portland) to amend the provision. The change would allow lawmakers to register a late vote to create an additional report of “Ought Not to Pass,” which in legislative lingo means a recommendation against the full Legislature passing a given bill — or the “no” vote Fredette sought to cast.
The Senate has yet to take up the proposal.
Moonen said this change aims to strike the balance of maintaining a commitment to transparency “that new amendments, new versions of bills, when they are suggested to be passed, that they should be articulated on mic in full view of the public. This would continue that, but this would narrow the rule just a little bit.”
Republican lawmakers also voiced overall objections to late-night votes on Tuesday, particularly in the budget committee, which has a track record of doing so. These concerns had been aired earlier during off-session meetings of the Joint Rules Committee but the committee decided to focus on other issues for rule changes at the start of the session.
The rules committee is expected to discuss late night votes and other concerns this spring, though an exact date for its next meeting has yet to be set.
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