Morning briefing 2.24.12
Snow day, slow day.
The Government Oversight Committee and the Legislature’s budget-writing committee are the only two committees scheduled to meet today. There may not be much action in either.
In GOC the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability is expected to present a progress report of ongoing projects. One of those is an analysis of expenditures at the Maine State Housing Authority, but it’s not clear if OPEGA will deliver information on that project.
Appropriations, meanwhile, isn’t likely to start digging into the Department of Health and Human Services budget for fiscal year 2013 until next week at the earliest. That budget includes most of Gov. Paul LePage’s biggest structural changes to Medicaid, which the news site Stateline dubbed the most draconian roll back of health care coverage in the country.
The changes will be divisive; lawmakers and insiders in the State House are predicting Republicans will eventually pass a majority budget.
The Senate on Thursday finally ratified the 2012 budget after Democrats blocked its passage the week before. Democrats claimed Wednesday that they wanted to amend the budget to “soften the landing” for veterans transitioning off Medicaid, but the Senate approved no such adjustments. Democrats say Republican leadership and LePage have assured them a plan would be developed to address the issue. Stay tuned.
That Senate Democrats didn’t secure a meaningful amendment after holding out last week disappointed some progressives, including Ethan Strimling, who took to Twitter to say Democrats capitulated. Meanwhile, the Maine Heritage Policy Center, issued a press release saying lawmakers had heeded the organization’s protests over a budget plan that would have frozen the drawdown of a tax on insurance providers.
Oh, and apparently LePage signed the budget. No official release from the administration, but that’s what the governor told his Capitol For a Day audience in Somerset County. The impromptu announcement was quickly followed by a phone call from Adrienne Bennett to some reporters confirming that the budget had indeed been signed.
Also at the event, members of the group Maine’s Majority pressed state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin on claims that he’s using a 40-year-old conservation program as a tax shelter for his waterfront property in Georgetown (Video at the group’s website). Poliquin at first didn’t answer the question, but later said his property was but one of thousands enrolled in the program; his didn’t deserve special scrutiny. LePage also stepped in to defend the treasurer, saying it was up to towns to enforce the law and that to this point he hadn’t heard any complaints.
The governor is right. Last week the Georgetown Board of Selectmen said they would not single out Poliquin. The board said it would have to evaluate all 10 properties in Tree Growth, but made no firm commitment to do so.
