Gov. Mills reflects on pandemic’s affects on Maine in budget address
(The Center Square) – Maine Gov. Janet Mills reflected on the turmoil of the pandemic and expressed optimism about the state’s economic recovery Tuesday night as she detailed key provisions of her two-year $8.4 billion budget proposal.
In her “state of the budget” address, Mills said Mainers, “like the rest of the nation, were dealt a bad hand last year” by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve been through a lot these past 12 months, and perseverance will see us through these times,” the first-term Democrat said in a video broadcast Tuesday night. “We will not only survive, we will rise a better, greater state for all that we have endured and all that we have learned, all whom we have saved.”
Unlike previous budget addresses, which are normally held before a joint session of the House and Senate at the state Capitol, Mills’ remarks were prerecorded and broadcast online.
Mills touted details of her budget, which has been the subject of legislative hearings in recent weeks, pointing out that it boosts spending on health care, public schools and job creation.
“This pandemic has not changed those priorities but, rather, only underscored their importance and the importance of our investments in them” she said. “Now is the time to maintain those investments.”
Her spending proposals include $45 million in new funding for K-12 public education and $5 million for COVID-19 testing, vaccines and support for people in quarantine.
Amid criticism for business trade groups, Mills has also called for $82 million in tax relief for all Maine small businesses who received the Paycheck Protection Program.
Mills said her administration plans to file a new “Back to Work” bond proposal that would provide about $100 million for expanding broadband, support for farmers, loggers and fishermen, career and technical centers and loans to expand child care offerings.
The proposal, which she said will be unveiled in the coming weeks, would draw on Maine’s 10-year Strategic Economic Development Plan as well as recommendations from the Governor’s Economic Recovery Committee.
“There are good-paying jobs in the trades, in electrical or plumbing work, in construction and manufacturing, in health care and life sciences and in clean energy that are going unfilled,” she said. “We have to connect the workforce with those jobs and make an investment in new jobs at the same time.”
Mills voiced optimism that life will get better for Mainers in coming months with COVID-19 vaccines being distributed and infection rates declining.
“The collective efforts of our people and their government, for now, are working,” she said.
Touting the state’s economic recovery, Mills noted that “building supplies, consumer sales, auto and business operating sales, retail sales are all up.”
Mills said she has heard calls to make sweeping cuts in state spending as part of her budget, but argued now isn’t the time for the state government to recede.
“History has shown that we cannot cut our way to prosperity,” she said. “During emergencies such as this, people depend on us to protect children, to secure health care, to safeguard educational and career opportunities and to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens.”
Responding to Mills’ comments, Senate Republican Leader Jeff Timberlake, R-Androscoggin, called for fiscal restraint as lawmakers work on a final budget package.
“I hope our counterparts on the other side of the aisle will agree not to pass pieces of legislation that will increase spending for wants not needs,” Timberlake said in remarks broadcast by local TV stations. “We should only be increasing spending on things that we need to pay for.”
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