Investigation finds Gov. LePage threatened Good Will-Hinckley funding
The Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee released a 27-page report Tuesday detailing its investigation into whether Gov. Paul LePage and the Maine Department of Education interfered in an employment contract between Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves and Good Will-Hinckley this June.
The Bangor Daily News reported the committee has found strong evidence that LePage took steps to withdraw $530,000 in state funding from the charter school for at-risk students to force the school’s board to fire Eves, who in June accepted a $120,000-per-year job as Good Will-Hinckley’s president.
Good Will-Hinckley runs the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, a public charter school in Fairfield made possible by 2011 legislation championed by LePage and opposed by Eves. LePage and Republicans have cited Eves’ general opposition to charter schools as valid cause for challenging his appointment as Good Will-Hinckley’s president, the newspaper reported.
Eves has a civil lawsuit pending against LePage, in which he accuses the governor of interfering with his family’s livelihood.
House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe, a Democrat from Skowhegan, told the newspaper the report “clearly shows that [LePage] is willing to damage Good Will-Hinckley to exact his personal revenge,” while House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, a Republican from Newport, told the BDN, “We must all be careful not to rush to judgment on this issue.”
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