Budget Work Delayed After LePage’s DHHS Team Refuses to Show Up

AUGUSTA — The effort to resolve the shortfall in the state’s budget for this year slowed on Monday after officials from Governor Paul LePage’s Department of Health of Human Services declined to show up to testify before the Appropriations Committee.

The officials were expected to testify on a series of questions on the department’s $45 million hole.  Lawmakers submitted the questions in writing to staff, per the Governor’s policy.

“We are very frustrated. We’ve followed the Governor’s rules, and we’re still not getting answers,” said Rep. Peggy Rotundo of Lewiston, the House Chair of the Appropriations Committee. “It’s our shared responsibility to pay the bills. There is a lot of pressure to get this done. We want to do it right.”

The Appropriations Committee has been working on closing the shortfall for the past week. DHHS has re-forecasted its data multiple times since it first announced the hole last year.

“I’m very unimpressed that no one was here to talk to us. It seems DHHS doesn’t share the same sense of urgency as the Administration,” said Senator Dawn Hill of York, the Senate Chair of the Appropriations Committee. “We have bills that come due on April 1st and Appropriations takes that deadline very seriously. Regardless, we are moving ahead with closing the budget.”

The committee continued its work on items unrelated to the DHHS portion of the shortfall, taking several unanimous votes on individual line items, including funding for indigent legal services, support for a mental health unit at Maine State Prison in Warren, funds for Career Technical Education educator retirement costs, and funding to improve salary competitiveness and safety at Riverview Psychiatric Center (RPC) and Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (DDPC).

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