FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, March 13, 2019
MEDIA CONTACT: Julie Rabinowitz, Director of Policy and Communication, 207-292-2722 ext. 102, Julie@mainepbp.com
Mills Breaks Pledge to Protect Rainy Day Fund
AUGUSTA—Maine People Before Politics has released the following statement on Governor Janet Mills’s use of $10 million from the Rainy Day Fund to pay for expenses in the Department of Health and Human Services.
“On two separate occasions last month Governor Mills touted her protection of the Budget Stabilization or Rainy Day Fund in her budget, yet days later she raided the piggy bank, using $10 million to pay for costs at DHHS,” stated Julie Rabinowitz, director of policy and communication for Maine People Before Politics. “Mills used the rainy day fund to plug holes in the DHHS budget only 57 days into her term. This is exactly the poor fiscal management that created the budget nightmare from which we emerged under the LePage Administration. In the Mills Administration, every day will be a rainy day in Augusta.”
Rabinowitz emphasized, “We appreciate Senator Hamper’s bringing this to the attention of the people of Maine. Rather than putting this appropriation into the supplemental budget where it would be reviewed in public, she transferred the money behind closed doors, presenting it as a done deal. Instead, because her supplemental and biennial budgets spend all of the on-hand and projected revenue, when a real cost emerged, she had to resort to getting one-time money from the Rainy Day Fund using a budget gimmick. This is exactly the situation Maine People Before Politics warned about in our analysis of her biennial budget. Governor Mills needs to be held accountable for the budget she presented and face the consequences of any shortfall.”
On February 11, Janet Mills stood before a joint session of the Legislature and declared that her budget protected the Rainy Day Fund: “This is a pragmatic, common-sense budget that lives within our means and delivers what Maine people want. It is based on the projections of independent experts on the Revenue Forecasting Committee of the previous administration who also say that revenue beyond this biennium is expected to be $8.3 billion. That is hundreds of millions of dollars more than what this budget proposes. When taken in combination with the robust Rainy Day fund that we have protected, Maine is well-positioned in the years to come.”
In Janet Mills’s February 8, 2019, budget overview addressed to the “Legislature and Citizens” of Maine, she wrote, “This budget does not raise or create a single tax or fee on Maine people, business, or organization [sic] and it protects the state’s budget stabilization or ‘rainy day’ fund.”
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