The Appropriations Committee, which this session helped shape two controversial budgets and this week put the final touches on a bond package, arguably is the most powerful group in the Legislature outside of leadership, yet many of its members have professions that rely on public funds.
Two committee members run agencies that receive funding from Medicaid and a third works for group homes serving those with mental retardation. One operated a pharmacy until a Medicaid billing discrepancy estimated at more than $1 million was investigated by the state and sent the business into bankruptcy. There is a public middle school teacher; an assistant professor at the University of Maine in Fort Kent; and a former instructor and contractor with USM. The committee also includes a former district attorney and an executive branch administrator who served three governors. If family connections count, the links to public funding grow even stronger.
In many ways the 13-member committee is a microcosm of the entire citizen legislature in Maine, which because of its part-time status and low wages – $20,000 for a two-year term – means those who serve also have regular jobs affected in some way by the laws and budgets they pass.
A teacher co-chairs the Education Committee; a farmer heads Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry; an environmental manager for a paper company sits on Natural Resources. The difference with the Appropriations Committee is the power it wields.
While its co-chairman, Rep. Joe Brannigan, D-Portland, has taken to referring to it as the once-powerful committee because of the role Democratic leadership has played this session, anything with a state dollar attached to it has to pass through its hands.
Brannigan is a perfect example of the fine line committee members have to walk. He is the executive director of the Shalom House in Portland, which helps adults with severe mental illness, using Medicaid money channeled through the Department of Health and Human Services.
Brannigan, who has been in the Legislature for more than 20 years – taking three terms off in the 1990s – said he used to avoid even discussing mental health issues, but now holds himself to a different standard.
“This time, I don’t know what it is…I’m less cautious because in a citizens’ legislature there’s nothing there that can make a difference in my pocket at all, but it might make a difference in the people I see everyday,” he said.
He agreed that many on his committee could be perceived as having a conflict, but “I consider it somewhat distant.”
“We have some very passionate people,” he said. “We all do things from our own experiences. I don’t think I’ve seen a time when I felt I would need to admonish,” committee members for going over the line on behalf of their own self-interest.
In fact, state law prohibits legislators from voting on bills affecting areas where they have “a direct, substantial personal financial interest distinct from that of the general public,” pointed out Rep. Janet Mills, D-Farmington, a former district attorney and now the “resident attorney” serving on Appropriations.
“We all receive tax dollars somehow or another,” she said, referring to all Maine citizens, including legislators. “Can a teacher vote on teacher retirement issues? Yes they can,” she said, because the benefit is not unique to them.
In fact, state Rep. Stephen Bowen, R-Rockport, a middle school teacher in SAD 28, did just that this past session in the House, voting against raising the state’s contribution for health insurance for retired teachers from 40 to 45 percent. It passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature only to die at the end of session in the Appropriations Committee for lack of money.
“I thought it was a transparent political ploy,” to win the teachers’ vote, he said, with no way to fund it.
Bowen, one of seven newcomers to Appropriations this session, said being on the committee reminds him of the parable about the blind man and the elephant because he sees the whole picture, versus the more narrow focus legislators get on other committees. He said he’s learning not only from department heads, who have to come before the committee to present their budget, but from other Appropriations members.
“It never hurts to have someone who’s an expert in something,” he said, ticking off the expertise of his fellow committee members. “It’s a very strong, very talented” group, he said, although, “it tends to be loaded up with a lot of social service people.”
State Rep. Arthur Lerman, D-Augusta, made no secret of his connection to the state’s Medicaid program earlier this year when he helped organize a press conference to protest problems with the state’s billing system. A new computer installed in the Department of Health and Human Services had literally brought payments to providers to a standstill. The system still isn’t working correctly.
Lerman is executive director of Support Solutions, which helps people with development disabilities.
“The system issue was not specific to my agency. It affects thousands of providers and hundreds of thousands of people” on Medicaid, he said. “Through my work, an issue got uncovered.”
Rep. Bob Nutting, R-Oakland, has tried to put his dealings with Medicaid behind him. His former business, True’s Pharmacy of Oakland, was investigated by the Department of Human Services for over-charges, and the state said it was owed more than $1 million in overpayments. The pharmacy had a number of Medicaid clients, including long-term care facilities.
“There was no doubt they had overpaid us money,” said Nutting, but he disagreed with the amount and the timetable the then DHS set out for the pharmacy to pay the money back. Ultimately True’s went bankrupt, and Nutting has moved on to work as a pharmacist in Rangeley.
“I don’t hate anybody. I think things could have been done better,” he said. “I have tried to put that part of my business life behind me and do a good job on the Appropriations Committee for my constituents.”
Rep. Darlene Curley, R-Scarborough, was a former instructor at the University of Southern Maine’s school of nursing in the 1990s, and more recently had a contract with the University System to set up clinical sites for students to work and give back to their community. A registered nurse, she started a home healthcare business in her 20s and today does consulting with health care systems.
“I understand that you have to make a payroll and from the health care side take care of people,” she said. If there’s any conflict in her role on Appropriations, it is weighing “things that are best for my district versus what’s best for the whole state.”
Sen. John Martin, D-Aroostook, is the longest serving legislator in Maine. He was speaker of the House for 19 years and a former chair of Appropriations Committee. He is also an associate professor and executive assistant to the president at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. He’s an insurance agent selling the state’s Dirigo Health insurance and has served as the treasurer of a nursing home in his hometown of Eagle Lake.
Asked how he walks the line between legislative service and private interest, Martin said it’s simple. “If it affects me personally, than obviously you don’t vote on it.”
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