A Budget for Maine’s Working Families

It’s been a tough two years for Mainers. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant inflation as supply chain issues persist, made economic and societal inequities worse, and highlighted the weaknesses in our state’s safety net. But our leaders in Augusta are directing their attention to solutions that will not only help us recover but prosper in the long term.

Governor Mills recently publicized her proposal for the state’s supplemental budget, focusing on basic needs like education, healthcare, and housing, and supporting and strengthening Maine’s working families. Thanks to a generous $822 million surplus, the state will be providing each Maine taxpayer a one-time $750 check. Read on to learn about the other ways the latest budget could help Maine recover and grow.

MFWF-Supported Budget Items

In addition to providing Maine’s taxpayers with givebacks, Governor Mills’ proposed budget seeks to address basic needs like education, healthcare, and housing:

• Two years of free community college: High schoolers graduating between 2020 and 2023 can take advantage of two years of free tuition if attending community college full-time. This is meant to meet workforce shortages and help students find jobs in fields with high demand.

• Increased pay for child care workers and Early Childhood educators: During last year’s legislative session, House Speaker Ryan Fecteau spearheaded an initiative to make child care and early childhood education more affordable and accessible for all Mainers. At the same time, we need to ensure that we have the best staff and teachers to help our young children get the most out of their earliest years of development. This plan would invest more than $12 million in ongoing General Fund dollars to increase pay for child care workers and early childhood educators to strengthen our child care system across Maine.
  

• Relief for Maine’s healthcare providers: The pandemic has stretched our state’s healthcare system to its very limits and beyond. Now Governor Mills is seeking to ease the strain on hospitals and long-term care facilities by providing a combined $50 million in one-time funding.
  

• Expanded property tax relief: In an effort to address the ongoing housing crisis, Governor Mills seeks to invest $7 million from the General Fund to increase the maximum benefit of Maine’s Property Tax Fairness Credit. If approved, an estimated 100,000 low- and middle-income property owners and renters who pay more than 4 percent of their household budgets on property taxes or rent will be eligible for a refundable tax credit valued at up to $1,000 each year (or $1,500 per year for seniors).

The Governor’s budget proposal also looks to ease financial strains on working Mainers, including the impacts of inflation. Under this plan, the maximum benefit of Maine’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) would increase by an average of $400 per family, bringing the total EITC benefit per family to an average of $764 per year. This would benefit an estimated 100,000 Mainers, primarily working families with incomes of less than $57,414.

PFML Remains a Priority

While we are in favor of many of the initiatives in Governor Mills’ proposed budget plan, it noticeably lacks a strong investment in developing the state’s Paid Family and Medical Leave program. The plan only allocates $300,000 in one-time General Fund dollars to fund an actuarial study of a potential statewide paid leave policy. Meanwhile, $12 million remains to be allocated by the Maine Legislature.

Maine’s working families can’t wait. The Commission on Paid Family and Medical Leave is working diligently to craft a program to meet our state’s unique needs, but we need financial support from the state to get the program off the ground. Tell our leaders in Augusta that we need to allocate funding for establishing a statewide Paid Family and Medical Leave program this session.

Protecting Maine's Voters

The right to a secret ballot is fundamental to our democracy. Voters must have the ability to express their preferences freely if true representation can exist. But that freedom has come under attack in the past year.

In the wake of the 2020 election, states like Arizona, Texas, and Michigan were subjected to audits by partisan groups that gained access to ballots and voting machines in an effort to weed out “election fraud.” While these audits ultimately confirmed the results of the election, they still achieved their primary purpose: to sow distrust in our electoral system.

Now our legislators are taking steps to strengthen our elections and protect the rights of Maine’s voters. LD 1779, “An Act To Protect Election Integrity by Regulating Possession of Ballots and Voting Machines and Devices,” preserves ballots by requiring that they be in sealed containers in possession of municipal clerks. Ballots and voting equipment can only be moved at the direction of the Secretary of State. If for any reason these ballots need to be inspected, they must remain in the sole custody of the inspector, and the inspection must be supervised by a public official.

WATCH: Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on LD 1779

“The right to vote is fundamental to everything else that we care about,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told us. “Full and fair participation by every citizen in our democracy is how we ensure that our elected officials represent the will of the people and the decisions they make are accountable to the people.

“The idea that ballots could be turned over to partisan entities who might alter the ballot, screen the ballot, try to trace the ballot back to individuals, or the machinery–the equipment, the tabulators that count the votes–could be compromised in any way, undermines democracy itself.”

Mainers for Working Families applauds Secretary Bellows and our leaders in Augusta for preserving our right to vote in free and fair elections. Maine is known for its strong voting rights protections and inclusive methods, including ranked-choice voting and no-excuse absentee ballots. LD 1779 would be one more way our democracy works by and for the people of Maine.

Massachusetts Provides a Roadmap for Paid Family and Medical Leave in Maine

The Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston has released a case study that presents an in-depth look at the development of Massachusetts’ statewide paid leave program, supported in part by Mainers for Working Families.

During the 2021 legislative session, policymakers established a commission to develop a statewide Paid Family and Medical Leave program here in Maine. Its members include bipartisan legislators from both chambers, corporate and small business representatives, and health and labor experts, who are currently working together to develop a PFML program that is unique and attuned to Maine’s needs.

“When we’re out talking to Mainers about the challenges they’re facing… we hear these heart-wrenching stories from workers who got sick or are welcoming a new baby into the world, or they had to care for an ill family member, but they couldn’t afford to miss a paycheck,” said Evan LeBrun, executive director of Mainers for Working Families, in a recent press conference. “We also hear from many of Maine’s small business owners about how much they’d love to provide for their workers this kind of time but just can’t find a way to afford it and still keep the lights on.”

“As a business owner, a legislator, and a young woman who would one day like to start a family, Paid Family Leave is an issue that has been important to me for years,” said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Mattie Daughtry, who sponsored the bill that created Maine’s Paid Family Leave commission. “There’s no question that our workers and businesses and economy need this Paid Family Leave policy, the question is… what will this policy look like?”

The study of the Massachusetts program demonstrates how states can effectively implement robust paid family and medical leave programs through legislation and collaboration between businesses, workers, and grassroots activists. The policy passed with bipartisan support in Massachusetts. Republican Governor Charlie Baker signed the program into law, with the program going into effect on January 1, 2021.

The report found that the benefits of paid family and medical leave helped not only workers, but extended to businesses large and small: “Businesses experience cost-savings and other benefits such as enhanced employee engagement, productivity and morale when workers can take paid leave to address family and medical needs…evidence shows that alleviating barriers to participation in the economy is good for families, good for firms, and good for the economy.”

“[M]y son Henry was in the NICU, he was 3 lbs, 12 oz,” said Ellie Lisa, founder of Paid Leave for ME. “I remember mothers being in the break room of the NICU and just complaining how their child was going to be in the NICU for their entire maternity leave. By the time they brought their child home they were going to have to go right back to work because they could not afford unpaid time off.”

“I think it’s a national embarrassment that we don’t have Paid Family and Medical Leave in the wealthiest country in the world… A step we can take toward righting this wrong is getting a statewide program in place,” said Wells Lyons, General Counsel at Rogue Industries in Standish. “We’re a small business and we do offer Paid Parental Leave for our employees, but it isn’t nearly enough, we offer what we can afford… because we can't offer the same benefits as larger companies, we’re really at a competitive disadvantage.”

The commission tasked with developing the program in Massachusetts, which had a similar composition to that in Maine, was notably effective in its approach to the process: “As one interviewee reflected, ‘sometimes the differences between proponents and opponents of a policy are smaller in practice than they can appear when you're in campaign mode and that getting people in the same room working in good faith can be effective at figuring out what the actual concerns are and whether they can be addressed’.”

“For decades in Massachusetts, concerns from the business community stopped paid leave bills in their tracks. However, once a group of labor and business leaders was convened by legislative leaders, and they began to trust each other, it became clear that a workable program was indeed possible” said Dr. Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, Director the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMass Boston.

The United States remains the only developed nation without a paid family and medical leave policy.

The report is authored by the Center’s Priyanka Kabir, Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, Christa Kelleher, Lillian Hunter, and Cassandra Porter.