Stan Tetenman

This is the headline of a Jan. 11 press release from the Legislative Republicans:

“Republicans call for tax cuts for working families amidst historic price increases: The state over-collected $1.5 billion from taxpayers, then returned $1.15 billion of it in rebate checks. Republicans want to lower taxes to help people struggling to make ends meet.”

While this is a laudable goal, there are concerns with this appearing to be Republicans primary position on the budget. There are issues and programs that could be funded that may improve the lives of Maine citizens.

Some of the issues Gov. Janet Mills would like to address in her proposed budget are: 1) increased funding for mental health and substance abuse, 2) Department of Transportation funding to give access to $1 billion of federal funding, 3) increased housing assistance, 4) legal services for the indigent, 5) free community college tuition to help increase trained people in the workforce, 6) maintaining the 5% revenue sharing program to communities, 7) maintaining local school funding at 55% per the voter-approved 2004 referendum, 8) funding pay increases for child care workers so more people can afford to be in the workforce, 9) free school meals for students, especially for students from poorer families, and 10) funding to ensure communities receive full reimbursement for the senior tax cap for property taxes.

In principle, I agree with these items.

During the past couple of years, the state budget has been helped by federal money. It allowed the government to maintain programs and give needed assistance to many people who lost income because of the pandemic. Much of that money will be gone over the next two years.

We are the oldest state in the nation. Over the next few years we are going to lose a significant portion of our workforce as more people retire. We need the community college and child care programs to entice people to enter and re-enter the workforce. We also need to help train and be accepting of our immigrant population to help fill our workforce needs.

Increased housing assistance and new housing are needed to help the homeless and the working poor, and to bring new workers to our state. There have been many articles and studies about people who work full time but find themselves homeless because they can’t find affordable housing.

Studies have shown that vehicle owners in Maine spend a lot of money repairing their cars and trucks because of the poor condition of many of our roads and bridges. Repairing our infrastructure will save money on these repairs.

We know that if a student is hungry, he or she will not be able to learn as well as a student who is not hungry. A large number of students are in a position of not having enough to eat. Providing them a daily meal or two is a good humanitarian use of our tax money.

Most people are in agreement that we need more services available to help people with mental health and substance abuse issues. There are substantial financial and societal costs to not providing help to these citizens.

Three of the above issues are important to communities to help keep property taxes from significantly increasing: 55% school funding, 5% revenue sharing, and 100% reimbursement for the senior property tax cap program. If any of these programs are decreased, the burden falls back to local property tax payers to pay the difference.

In the Republican press release, it did not indicate what tax(es) they want to cut. If there should be a tax cut, would they increase taxes if the economy takes a significant downturn? The news release did indicate they were pleased to see the budget did address some of their priorities, though these priorities were not listed.

As the budget deliberations move forward, it would be good to see what specific programs are supported by both parties. It would be very helpful to hear what programs they do not support and the reasons why.

We are fortunate in Maine that we have legislators from both parties who do their best to work together to find solutions to benefit all of our citizens. Let us hope that spirit of cooperation will provide help to all our citizens.

Stan Tetenman is a member of the Poland Select Board. These are his opinions and not those of the Select Board or town.