Gov. Mills to sign supplemental budget Friday following passage in the Senate

AUGUSTA, Maine (WMTW) - Governor Janet Mills will visit Eastern Maine Community College to sign the 2026-2027 supplemental budget.

The signing ceremony is set to take place at 12:15 p.m.

The Maine Senate approved the supplemental budget bill on Thursday.

WMTW said the bill, LD 2212, passed in the State Senate along party lines.

Three of the four necessary votes needed to advance the bill to Mills’ desk happened overnight, including the final vote from the Maine House of Representatives. The House’s Democratic majority passed the bill in a narrow 76-73 vote.

The more than $500 million budget package includes a number of initiatives that are being heavily supported by Democrats in the Legislature, including $300 relief checks first announced by Mills during her final State of the State address and a new 2% tax on income above $1 million.

“This budget will deliver significant relief to Maine people facing rising prices because of the shortsighted actions of the Trump administration,” Mills said in a statement. “The supplemental budget gives money directly back to the people of Maine, it builds on my administration’s historic investments in housing, it makes free community college permanent, it delivers more property tax relief and funding for child care and importantly, preserves critical funding for schools and health care for the coming years.”

“There’s some backstopping of some of the federal cuts to health care and to food stamps,” said Sen. Mike Tipping, D-Penobscot. “I represent Penobscot County. We’re looking at 14,000 families losing food assistance.”

There is $292 million in the package that is proposed to be drawn from the state’s $1.03 billion Budget Stabilization Fund, or “Rainy Day Fund.”

This budget makes permanent Mills’ Free Community College initiative.

Since the program was proposed by the Governor and approved by the Legislature in 2022, more than 23,000 Maine high school graduates have enrolled tuition-free at Maine community colleges.

Republicans unanimously opposed the bill and expressed concerns that the state was spending needlessly by dipping into the Rainy Day Fund.

“This budget looks like teenagers from rich families have dad’s credit card, and they want to go across Maine frivolously raising hell — ignoring the fact that it’s not their money,” said Republican State Rep. Michael Lemelin of Chelsea.

“You folks on the other side of the aisle are about to learn that hell has no fury like the Maine taxpayer after they see what you guys have done with this budget,” said Sen. Jeff Timberlake, R-Androscoggin.

Republicans proposed dozens of amendments to the budget and accused Democrats of “parliamentary tactics” after many of them were “indefinitely postponed.”