state budget

The roughly $320 million spending bill would provide tens of millions of dollars to nursing homes and plug a funding shortfall in the state's Medicaid program. But it would also increase taxes on tobacco, cannabis and popular video and audio streaming services.

Gov. Janet Mills wants to continue offering high school grads two years of free community college. But a legislative committee is recommending that the program end with the Class of 2025.

House Speaker Ryan Fecteau joined the call to preserve cost-of-living increases for CNAs, home health aides and other workers to avoid worsening the existing staffing shortage.

But the fate of the measure remains unclear despite bipartisan support for filling the nearly $120 million shortfall in the state's Medicaid program.

Maine Public host Nicole Ogrysko spoke with State House correspondent Kevin Miller about what's in and isn't in the $11.3 billion budget passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature as well as what political tensions surrounding the spending plan.

If enacted, this will be the third state budget passed largely or exclusively with Democratic support.

The bill aims to fill a nearly $120 million funding shortfall in MaineCare — the state's Medicaid program — and to provide $2 million to help address a looming spruce budworm infestation in the commercial forests of northern Maine.

Republicans are vowing to oppose the "targeted" tax and fee increases in the governor's $11.6 billion budget and Democrats are likely to oppose some of Mills' proposed spending cuts.

The governor is expected to focus on her proposed spending priorities during the final two years of her administration as lawmakers begin work on the state's next biennial budget.

While Gov. Janet Mills did not propose any broad-based tax increases, such as to the income tax, the Democrat has proposed generating additional revenue through taxes on tobacco, cannabis and video streaming services.