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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.
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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.
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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.
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But the fate of the measure remains unclear despite bipartisan support for filling the nearly $120 million shortfall in the state's Medicaid program.
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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.
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If enacted, this will be the third state budget passed largely or exclusively with Democratic support.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.