State budget gap filled

    AUGUSTA — State Sen. Roger Sherman said Tuesday that the Democrat’s version of the supplemental budget to fill a $190 million budget hole was passed on a strict party-line vote in the State Senate.     The budget battle over the last month began in the spirit of bi-partisanship but in the end the Democrats through gamesmanship cut the Republicans out of the process and passed a partisan budget.  
    “We were able to achieve some good things in the budget. We managed to keep the revenue office in Houlton open, it made important cuts to our state government to help begin the important process of reining in government spending, and it restored a $7 million cut to our rural hospitals,” Sherman said. “Unfortunately, the Office of Program Evaluation and Accountability (OPEGA) the one organization within government that actually seeks to make government more efficient, was not fully restored. In the coming weeks, we will work to make sure that this important office is not eliminated by the majority party.”
    There may be a need for another supplemental budget in April when the state learns how much tax revenue it brings in, he added.
    “As we move forward in the coming months it is important that we get Maine on the right track. We have a government we can no longer afford and, until we scale it back, we will find ourselves consistently having to deal with budget gaps like the one we just closed.”