Earlier this week, joined by Democratic and Republican lawmakers and Independent members of the Legislature, I was pleased to sign the state’s biennial budget into law.

The biennial budget is the culmination of months of work by my Administration and by both Democrats and Republicans on the Appropriations Committee and in the Legislature.

I am very proud of the hard work that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have put into this budget process and of the bipartisan agreement we’ve achieved as a result of that hard work.

As with all budgets and all compromises, nobody achieved everything they wanted, but this budget takes meaningful and important steps in investing in Maine’s future:

It expands health care and makes it more accessible.

It increases the minimum teacher salary and dedicates more money to fixing crumbling schools.

It provides property tax relief to hardworking Mainers, seniors, families, and small businesses.

It invests in workforce training and higher education.

And it puts money aside into the Rainy Day Fund.

These are the priorities that Maine people have asked us to deliver on, and I am proud to have worked with the Legislature to achieve this.

In his 1861 Inaugural Address, Governor Israel Washburn, a friend of Abraham Lincoln’s, said: “Waving aside petty schemes and unseemly wrangles… let us rise, if we can, to the height of the great argument which duty and patriotism so eloquently address to us.”

I think this bipartisan budget is just the start of Maine lawmakers rising to restore our tradition of civil discourse and rediscovering our common ground, rooted as it always has been in our shared love and dedication to this great State of Maine.

That is the type of government Maine people want. It’s the type of government Maine people deserve. It’s the type of government we can all be proud of. And it’s the type of government I will continue to work for as long as I am governor.

Thank you.

Janet Mills

Governor