GOP lawmakers spike budget cuts
Republican lawmakers have rejected Gov. Paul LePage’s proposal to trim $60 million from the state budget by cutting funding to private non-medical institutions.
Republicans on the Legislature’s Appropriations and Health and Human Services committees last week decided not to support the proposal to end funding for the institutions that help the elderly, mentally ill and others on July 1, according to MaineToday Media. Democrats already opposed the funding cut that would have affected 4,300 elderly Mainers and nearly 1,700 others. Appropriations Committee Senate Chairman Richard Rosen, R-Bucksport, told the news service that a full $60 million in savings would not be realized by eliminating funding to the institutions because their clients would then be eligible for other state assistance.
Lawmakers will now have to find alternatives to cut the budget by a total of $221 million. The committees will meet again this week, and a final vote by the full Legislature on the budget cuts will happen at the end of the month.
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