Last month, the Legislature passed a supplemental budget authorizing over $600 million in spending in addition to last year’s record-breaking $11.65 billion biennial budget. This new spending included nearly $300 million from the Budget Stabilization Fund, the state’s emergency reserve fund, for $300 checks to certain eligible residents, along with hundreds of millions more for other majority-party priorities.

Unfortunately, this budget failed to adequately fund important agricultural grant programs that support Maine farmers, loggers and rural communities.

Despite this already substantial spending package, lawmakers also considered bond proposals that would ask Mainers to take on additional debt. One of those proposals would have funded several agricultural and forestry programs.

I wholeheartedly support Maine’s farmers and loggers. In fact, I grew up on a farm and started my career in the agriculture industry. However, I could not in good conscience support asking taxpayers to pay even more, with interest, while the state budget continues to rapidly grow at an unsustainable pace. As legislators, our job is to make difficult decisions about how taxpayer dollars are spent. A responsible supplemental budget should have included these agricultural and forestry priorities without requiring additional borrowing.

That is why I introduced an amendment to the supplemental budget to fund these programs directly when the budget takes effect. Instead of raising taxes, drawing from the Budget Stabilization Fund and then asking Mainers to pay interest on a bond, the legislative majority should have prioritized this critical funding in the budget from the start.

Sen. Scott Cyrway
Albion