AUGUSTA — Supplemental budgets are often corrections to the state’s biennial spending plan and are used to plug a revenue shortfall.

Gov. Paul LePage’s $37 million supplemental budget released this week does that and much more. 

In addition to plugging a recently identified $13 million revenue gap in the governor’s spending plan, it contains a list of policy initiatives: tax breaks on some pensions, a reduction in higher education funding and a significant cut to General Assistance aid to municipalities. 

The governor has also reintroduced a proposal to zero-out state funding for the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. Lawmakers rejected the same cut last year. 

The administration this week presented the governor’s budget to the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. Sawin Millett, commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, said the proposal didn’t include many of LePage’s controversial initiatives. 

However, Democrats didn’t see it that way. 

“If this is the noncontroversial budget, I’d hate to see what the controversial plan is,” said Rep. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston. 

Democrats have blasted the budget proposal, arguing that it advances contentious initiatives that lawmakers rejected last year and includes tax breaks — specifically a $10.5 million cut in income tax on some pensions for military personnel — that are only partially paid for. 

“While the administration is increasing new spending by tens of millions of dollars, we are being asked to make terrible cuts that will impact our students, cities and towns,” Rotundo said.

She was particularly concerned about the $6.7 million reduction in General Assistance, which is used by towns to help low-income individuals. The decrease includes cutting in half the state’s General Assistance reimbursement to towns. Indian tribes are exempted from the provision.

Rotundo said the cut would hurt traditional service centers such as Lewiston, Portland and Bangor.  

The plan makes those who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ineligible for General Assistance. It also restricts housing assistance to 90 days during a calendar year. 

Additionally, the budget includes a $2.4 million cut in higher education funding. Hardest hit would be the University of Maine System, which is slated for a $1.8 million reduction in fiscal year 2013. The Maine Community College and Maine Maritime systems could see a combined $630,525 reduction in 2013. 

The MPBN cut would be about $1.7 million. 

The administration is touting increased spending to beef up court security, funding for the Office of the State Fire Marshal, more money for the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Lab and the Gambling Control Board.

There’s also a sales-tax exemption for wood-harvesting equipment, which the administration says would help bolster the forest products industry. 

All told, the revised spending plan includes $24.7 million in new spending. The proposal includes more revenue reductions, due to LePage’s plan to exempt pensions from income tax and an income-tax exemption for active-duty military pay.

The price tag for those items isn’t included in the plan because the administration has inserted the tax cuts into the fiscal year 2014 budget. That means the cuts won’t be addressed until the next Legislature and the biennial budget. 

Democrats said including the tax breaks in the proposal was a “political ploy.”

Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, said, “Most Maine families and businesses don’t buy what they can’t afford. The M.O. of this governor and Republicans is clear: Enact future tax breaks now, take credit for them and then let others make the tough choices to pay for them later.”

Berry also noted that the tax cuts passed by the Legislature last year would create a $400 million loss in revenue.

The cuts passed by a two-thirds margin, meaning Democrats supported them. 

Public hearings will begin next week on the budget proposals.

The budget does not address the projected $83 million funding gap at the Department of Health and Human Services. That problem will be addressed in a separate budget proposal and will contain a series of LePage’s “structural changes” to the state’s Medicaid program. 

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