Hundreds of childcare workers protest Gov. Janet Mills’ proposed cuts to childcare worker stipends in her biennial budget plan on March 4, 2025. (Photo by AnnMarie Hilton/ Maine Morning Star)
Gov. Janet Mills, members of her administration and lawmakers have repeatedly commented on the tough decisions to be made in crafting a budget plan for the next biennium as the state faces a deficit for the first time in years.
As the budget committee prepares to start voting Wednesday on how the state should spend its money for the next two years, they’ll be weighing objections in all areas.
On Tuesday, hundreds of childcare workers showed up at the State House to protest Mills’ proposed cuts to childcare worker stipends in her biennial budget plan. She’s advised reversing the state’s recent investments through a $30 million reduction that would bring stipends back to 2022 levels.
This plan is among a number of program cuts that Mills, a Democrat, proposed to help close the $450 million budget gap projected in the next biennium, as well as new taxes facing opposition from Republicans opposed to tax increases of any kind and some Democrats who instead want the state to adopt a model that taxes the wealthy more.
Initial public hearings on Mills’ budget plan revealed tensions across issue areas between requests to expand state programs versus investments that supporters say would prevent reliance on state government in the long term.
An item left out of her plan also has faced broad pushback: anticipated cost-of-living adjustments for health care providers that the Mills administration is withholding, a decision those who testified and lawmakers argue is illegal.
These adjustments and Mills’ proposed limits for General Assistance have already proven to be contentious issues in negotiations for the more pressing change package to address a Medicaid funding shortfall in the current fiscal year, which still remains in limbo without Republican support.
The minority party wants the General Assistance limits in the supplemental budget, the avenue through which Mills’ initially proposed them, however she’s since vowed to push for such changes in the two-year budget instead.
As the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee starts taking votes to settle how all of these pieces will, or won’t, make their way into the biennial budget document to be sent to the floor, read about the asks made by the public, advocates and specific agencies during the final public hearings on the plan that concluded last week:
Health Insurance
Health insurance is complicated and can be particularly so for people who don’t have access to it through employment, Linda Sanborn, board member of Consumers for Affordable Health Care, told the committees during a joint hearing of the budget and Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services committees on Feb. 26.
As the state’s Health Insurance Consumer Assistance Program, the organization provides that guidance to Mainers. For example, Sanborn said the program recently helped a York County resident who was inappropriately denied coverage file an appeal.
But Sanborn is concerned about several factors that could soon make the program’s services even more vital.
“We are particularly concerned about the continued effect the end of the [COVID-19 pandemic] public health emergency has had on Mainers, thousands of whom have had to or will soon transition to private marketplace coverage as continuous coverage under MaineCare has ended,” Sanborn said. “We are also concerned about the real possibility that coverage options for people who can’t afford or already struggle to pay for health insurance will become more limited as a result of possible changes at the federal level.”
Maine is one of 19 states, and Washington D.C., that fully run their own health insurance marketplace, called CoverME.gov, with the federal government running the remainder through healthcare.gov.
Last month, nearly 65,000 Mainers signed up for affordable health coverage through CoverME.gov for 2025, Health and Human Services Commissioner Sara Gagné-Holmes said during that same meeting.
Health care providers push for cost-of-living adjustments, against new taxes in two-year budget plan
Most of these Mainers receive premium assistance, meaning subsidies, so they’re at risk of having to pay significantly more for their coverage at the end of the year if enhanced subsidies provided by Congress are not extended, Sanborn said.
Further, because of cuts at the federal level, Sanborn said some Mainers who currently have employer-sponsored coverage may be at risk of losing their jobs and therefore coverage.
In all of these instances, people will need help understanding their options, Sanborn said, and urged lawmakers to continue funding the assistance program to help with existing and future challenges.
Gagné-Holmes also spoke about the importance of funding new positions for Maine’s Office of Health Insurance Marketplace as proposed by Mills.
Of the 64,678 Maine consumers who selected a health plan, 11,285 were new consumers who didn’t previously have insurance through marketplace, which Gagné-Holmes said broke Maine’s record of new consumers turning to CoverME.gov since it transitioned to a state-based marketplace in 2021.
During the open enrollment period that ended on Jan. 15, Maine’s marketplace contributed to more than 24.2 million people who signed up through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces nationwide. However, Gagné-Holmes said, Maine’s office is the smallest in the nation with nine employees, so her agency is requesting two more: a data and reporting manager to analyze enrollment trends and usage, and a senior planner to conduct annual audits.
While that office is seeking more staff, others are seeking a permanent space.
Created by the Legislature in 2021, the Office of Affordable Health Care tracks and analyzes health spending and costs in Maine to provide recommendations to policymakers to improve the affordability, quality and efficiency.
Executive Director Meg Garratt-Reed described the office as a lean operation, three staff with a current budget of just under $200,000.
“To date, staff have worked out of vacant desks in other departments buildings to ensure that we can devote maximum resources to our programmatic impact, but it has become essential for the long-term stability of the office to have a dedicated location,” Garratt-Reed said.
Garratt-Reed requested a one-time allocation of $55,000 for potential relocation expenses and then annual allocations of $47,200 for leased space.
Agriculture
Agriculture groups told the budget and Agriculture Conservation and Forestry committees on Feb. 27 that the uncertainty on the federal level regarding funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture underscores the importance of state assistance.
In addition to direct funding to farms, threatened cuts to the University of Maine System are also impacting major Maine food industries, notably wild blueberries.
Eric Venturini, executive director of the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine, pointed to the recently announced stoppage of USDA funding pending a compliance investigation into UMaine’s policies regarding transgender student participation in sports.
“UMaine’s Research and Extension programs and the Maine Agriculture and Forest Experiment Station, or MAFES, are critical to advancing wild blueberry management, harvesting and processing methods to improve efficiency and profitability,” Venturini said.
In 2024, there were more than 22 different wild blueberry MAFES and extension projects carried out by more than 15 university faculty to try to optimize net returns for growers and processors and deliver practical recommendations, Venturini said.
“The agricultural community relies on modern research and development to remain competitive in a national and global marketplace,” he said. “The university needs to grow to fulfill the needs of the stakeholder community, and to do that, their budget needs to grow, also, both from the state and from Washington.”
Specifically, Venturini said the commission doesn’t know the status of $15 million for sustainable water source development and $100 million for Extension and MAFES, which he said essentially underpin all of the agricultural programs at the University of Maine.
“People’s salaries, their staffs’, their students, their grants as well, are all tied to this funding, and so if it is turned off, it is very alarming,” Venturini said
According to Samantha Warren, director of government and community relations for the university system, UMaine was awarded a total of $29.78 million in funding from the USDA last fiscal year.
She said she is limited in what she can say about the active compliance review but told lawmakers, “We will comply with state and federal law as we have always done, and we will cooperate with with any compliance review from USDA, or any other federal or state agency, as a recipient of state and federal funds.”
Elections
Maine’s Clean Elections program has already gotten attention this year with a number of bills seeking to expand the candidates who can access it.
Jonathan Wayne, executive director of Maine Ethics Commission, asked lawmakers during a joint hearing of the budget and Veterans and Legal Affairs committees on Feb. 27 to change the timing of what have become annual transfers of $3 million to the program in 2026.
“Depending on how many candidates for governor and the Legislature choose to participate in the Maine Clean Election Act program for the 2026 elections, there is a possibility of a temporary shortfall in the Maine Clean Election Fund during 2026,” Wayne said.
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As of now, a $3 million transfer to the Maine Clean Election Fund is scheduled for Jan. 1 2027, two months after the general election, so Wayne requested the transfer instead occur in July of the election year. Wayne also testified in favor of Mills’ proposal for the commission to hire a third candidate registrar for 2026, but only if candidates for governor opt into the Maine Clean Election Act program.
That said, others have cautioned the program is already running up against inadequate funding.
Given that shortfall and requests through other bills to expand the program to candidates for sheriff, district attorney and county commissioner races, Rep. Benjamin Hymes (R-Waldo) asked about changing qualifying contributions from $5 to $10.
In order to qualify and receive Clean Elections funding, candidates have to show they have community support by collecting $5 contributions, with required totals varying by office sought, from registered voters in their district. These requirements are intended to encourage broader constituent engagement.
Wayne said his staff has considered this but found it wouldn’t make much of a dent in terms of overall program revenue. Alternatively, he said, it could make it harder to get qualifying cash contributions.
Also related to elections, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows explained to the committees that public interest in elections processes has dramatically increased in recent years and therefore she supports Mills’ proposal to fund a public relations specialist for the Bureau of Corporations, Elections and Commissions.
“I think it’s interesting that the elections division is one of the few areas of state government where there isn’t a civil service staffer who is dedicated to public information,” Bellows said. “When you look at state police or DHHS or these various other departments, there are individuals whose sole job it is to think about how to communicate to the public and have it be in a nonpartisan way. That’s why we’re advocating for this, both for FOAA but also public information, our website, and those daily requests.”
The position would be temporary, through June 2027. Other allocations to the bureau Mills has proposed include funding for post-election audits, to account for increases in ballot printing, postage and other election costs, as well as some other positions, including a temporary election security analyst.
Bellows pointed to the swatting targeting schools that served as polling places in 2024 as an example of why security training and exercises with state and federal partners is important.
Utilities
Mills wants to make a new department focused on the state’s energy needs and goals.
The governor proposed elevating the current Governor’s Energy Office to a cabinet-level department through budget language, a cost-neutral initiative to allow for more comprehensive and consistent management of the state’s energy system, according to her administration.
It received mixed feedback during a public hearing on Feb. 27.
Steven Hudson, a lobbyist for Preti Flaherty who testified on behalf of the Industrial Energy Consumer Group, not in opposition to the elevation, per se, but to question whether it is the best path for Maine.
“The details in this case really matter,” Hudson said, suggesting that lawmakers instead consider the change in a standalone bill and not as part of the two-year budget document so it can have its own public hearing and deliberations.
“Are we injecting politics into certain activities that Maine traditionally uses an independent agency or an independent entity [for] like the Efficiency Maine Trust, the Public Utilities Commission, which are somewhat divorced from direct political influence?” Hudson questioned.
“Our concerns do not have to do with Gov. Mills or Gov. Mills’ choice for commissioner,” Hudson added, “but it has to do with, at some point down the road, you’re going to become more like Massachusetts, which has a lot of politics involved in what it procures, how it procures it, how much it pays for it.”
State employee pay
Budget hearings continued to highlight the long-running dispute over state worker wages.
Public hearings on sections of the plan under the purview of the Marine Resources Committee, Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee, State and Local Government Committee, and Transportation Committee saw concerns similar to those voiced in earlier hearings about the pay gap between state employees and their private sector counterparts.
In multiple hearings, Beth White, director of politics and legislation for the Maine Service Employees Association, reiterated her opposition to a proposed transfer of $44 million meant for personnel into the general fund, which she argued could exacerbate existing issues with understaffing.
As an example, White pointed to Riverview Psychiatric Center, which has 51 vacant positions, or 25% of the 204 union-represented permanent and limited period positions, as of November 2024.
Joshua Kuester, fish culture supervisor at the Grand Lake Stream Fish Hatchery, has been a state employee for 12 years and said he feels as though he’s “begging for scraps.”
“A fish culture position requires a broad spectrum of both vocational skills and college level biological science knowledge, however extremely under qualified candidates are consistently making up the entirety of the candidate pool for our many vacant positions,” Kuester said.
This translates directly to hatcheries’ struggles to retain employees, he added, because the scope of the job is greater than what they’re being compensated for.
Jason Hall, who has worked for the Maine State Ferry Service since 2018, said all of the people he knows who have left the state service have done so for higher paying maritime jobs.
Shutting down a ferry due to a staffing shortage not only has a detrimental economic impact but disrupts island communities, Hall said. This was the case this past summer when leaders from six island communities asked Mills to address the unreliable ferry service, which they attributed to hiring and retention challenges due in part to low pay.
“There have been temporary stop-gap measures in the form of stipends and bonuses and starting new employees at higher steps, but once again, these measures do not address the long-term issues,” Hall told lawmakers.
These also remain issues for Maine Department of Transportation workers on land, said Thomas Frank, who works in Sherman.
“I would ask how the people of our state would interpret the concept of these essential services being filled by the lowest bidder as opposed to allowing it to remain in the hands of dedicated members that share their communities, conditions and quality of life after the fact?” Frank said. “Our union members consistently achieve less income for their efforts.”
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