LePage Proposes to Eliminate MPBN Funding
Among the changes included in the governor’s $6.1 billion budget is an entirely new proposal that would eliminate all state funding for the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. As Mal Leary of Capitol News Service reports, the change surprised lawmakers and MPBN executives.
Finance Commissioner Sawin Millett outlined the changes to members of the Appropriations Committee during a break in the public hearing on the $164.1 million dollars worth of changes the governor proposed last week.
Instead of eliminating funding for the campaigns for governor under the Clean Elections Act, Millett says the governor now wants to eliminate all state funding for MPBN.
“The removal of $1,954,235 per year, and we use that to fund the removal of the ethics piece, as well as some other components,” Millett said. “And I know this is going to be one that you want to discuss in detail later on.”
Republican Rep. Pat Flood of Winthrop is the committee co-chairman. He says the change is so significant the panel is setting aside time next Monday afternoon for public comment on the MPBN proposal. Committee members say they were not told about the initiative in advance.
The governor says no one should read too much into his decision: He needed $4 million to balance the budget, and that matches the MPBN allocation.
“I’m picking everything I can find,” LePage says. “We’re looking at everything. Believe me, we’re looking at everything. We’re cutting staff.”
During the election campaign, LePage had a contentious relationship with MPBN, suggesting at one point that he’d like to punch a reporter and refusing to appear on the network’s statewide televised gubernatorial candidates’ debate.
But the governor says his opinion of MPBN did not influence his budget decision. “I will tell you this: I’ve said it once, I’ve said it many times–I dish it out and I can take it. I don’t retaliate.”
Others are not so sure. Senate Democratic Leader Barry Hobbins of Saco says cutting public broadcasting is a theme being played out in both Congress and in many states with Republican governors.
“Unfortunately, this is out of the playbook of what is going on in Congress, with I think the tea party people in Congress,” Hobbins says. “And I’m disappointed with the governor–I hope he reconsiders.”
House Speaker Robert Nutting, a Republican from Oakland, says there is a public policy question about how much public broadcasting should receive in taxpayer funding when there are so many other demands on the taxpayers at all levels of government.
“It has a large following in the state of Maine, people who are very interested in watching and listening to MPBN,” Nutting says. “At the same time, there’s a philosophical opinion among some that it should be supported by advertising dollars, similar to all the other TV stations, and that scarce taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used for that. I’ll let the Appropriations Committee add that to the mix.”
Nutting says he received no advance notice of the proposal, nor did Senate President Kevin Raye, a Perry Republican. Democratic Rep. Peggy Rotundo of Lewiston is her party’s lead on the Appropriations Committee.
“I’m enormously disappointed that the governor has chosen to do this,” Rotundo says. “Not only is Maine Public Broadcasting important to many, many people in this state, but to bring an item like that to us at this point just makes it very difficult for us to complete this budget.”
Rotundo urged MPBN executives to make their case at Monday’s hearing. MPBN President and CEO Jim Dowe says she can be certain that will happen.
“Jim Dowe, the board of MPBN, our hundreds of thousands of members and listeners and watchers are going to fight to get those monies restored in this budget,” Dowe says.
Dowe says he is still trying to figure out the full impact of a 20 percent cut in the network’s budget. He says it will be significant and will affect programming on both television and radio, and on the network’s website.
“You know, it costs us money to produce high school basketball and deliver it all over the state–we’re going to look at that,” Dowe says. “It costs a lot of money to produce, frankly, the news and public affairs programming that people find so critical to the civil discourse that takes place in this state.”
Dowe says the network will be ready to make its case at Monday’s hearing before the Appropriations Committee, and he hopes members of the public will take the time to urge lawmakers to reject the elimination of MPBN funding.
Disclosure: Mal Leary owns and operates Capitol News Service, which provides some of the news used on MPBN.