$6.3B budget, hospital bill sent to LePage
The Maine House and Senate have sent to Gov. Paul LePage for approval a $6.3 billion budget plan, to take effect July 1, and a measure to pay the state's hospital debt.
The Bangor Daily News reported the two-year budget plan passed by just one vote in the House Thursday night, by a 102-43 margin. Budget plans need two-thirds support to clear either the House or Senate and need the same margin to overturn a gubernatorial veto.
The plan raises the sales tax by 0.5% and the meals-and-lodging taxes by 1% for those two years to restore 65% of the state's $200 million state revenue sharing program -- a program LePage proposed suspending to close the budget gap.
The bill also seeks to transition the state's Business Tax Equipment Reimbursement program to the locally supported Business Equipment Tax Exemption program, which provides local property tax exemptions for business equipment purchases rather than state reimbursement for those expenses. The bill calls for a task force to study the options and impacts for that transition and issue its findings by Dec. 1 of this year.
The paper reported lawmakers have also sent a bill to borrow against revenue from renegotiating the state's wholesale liquor contract to pay back about $184 million in Medicaid debt to hospitals in the state.
That payment would trigger another nearly $300 million in federal Medicaid reimbursements.
Earlier this year, LePage said passage of a plan to settle the state's hospital debt would make him comfortable releasing $105 million in voter-approved bonds for transportation and other projects and $100 million in a revenue bond for a new prison in Windham.
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