A proposal to hold a statewide referendum on whether to restore Maine’s original flag took another step forward this week.

The Legislature’s budget writing committee voted 9-4 Tuesday evening to release a hold on the bill, after determining that no additional funding would be needed to put the question on the ballot this fall.

Press Herald file photos

The bill still needs a final vote in the Senate before heading to Gov. Janet Mills. The governor has not yet taken a position on the bill, a spokesperson said Wednesday.

Questions remain about the exact design of the 1901 flag, which has appeared for years in various stylized versions on flags, stickers, hats, T-shirts and other merchandise.

One popular design, created by a Portland flag company, features a simple image of a pointy pine tree and blue star on a white field, but historians said the original version had a more lifelike pine tree with softer boughs and curved roots.

L.D. 86, sponsored by Rep. Sean Paulhus, D-Bath, squeaked through both chambers of the Legislature in the first round of voting, passing by two votes in both the House of Representatives and Senate.

The referendum was approved Tuesday evening by the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, which drafts the budget. It was one of the few split votes by the committee, which took up bills that were either already included in the budget signed by Mills on Tuesday or that wouldn’t result in any costs over the next two years.

The committee is still negotiating over which other bills on the special appropriations table should be funded.

As of Tuesday morning, 266 bills have been approved at a potential cost of nearly $1.5 billion for next year alone. That’s far more funding than the estimated $10 million to $12 million available, so many of those bills could either die on the table because they receive no funding this session or be carried over to the next session.

L.D. 86 seeks to ask voters whether to replace the current flag – which features the state seal, with a moose resting under a pine tree flanked by a farmer and seaman on a blue field – with some version of the 1901 flag.

If approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor, the secretary of state will be tasked with turning the textual description of the flag into a design for voters to consider. A bipartisan advisory committee, including experts in flags and related fields, would help with the design, according to a spokesperson.

The original flag is described in the bill as tan with “a pine tree proper in the center and the polar star (a mullet of five points), in blue in the upper corner.”

The bill was placed on the special appropriations table by the Senate because it could have cost up to $172,000 to print an additional ballot for the referendum. But the budget committee on Tuesday said adding a question to the fall ballot would not result in any costs.

It’s unclear when the Senate will reconvene to take up this bill and others that have been recommended for funding.