HOULTON, Maine — A limited workforce, a lack of housing, rising energy costs and child welfare top state lawmaker concerns, Maine Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, said on Monday evening.
Stewart visited the Houlton Town Council’s regular meeting via Zoom to update local leaders on the state’s current legislative challenges.
“Any Main street you walk down, I don’t care if you are in Presque Isle or Portland, they’ve all got ‘help wanted’ signs out,” Stewart said. “The same is true when you talk to any major manufacturer. A lot of them can bring on entire shift loads of employees, but they are struggling to just find them.”
With so many jobs available in the state, Stewart said it’s never been a better time to be a worker in Maine.
Dovetailing on the problem of unfilled job vacancies, the senator questioned the number of Mainers enrolled in the state’s welfare and expanded Medicaid programs.
“This is a hot topic,” he said, referring in particular to the federal welfare work requirement.
Federal welfare work requirement rules were waived in Maine during the COVID-19 national emergency. The waiver ends at the end of the month unless Gov. Janet Mills seeks an additional waiver.
Republicans in Stewart’s caucus are hoping the governor does not expand the waiver, so Maine can get back to the welfare work requirements in place prior to the COVID-19 emergency, he said.
In 2022, 174,618 individuals received $56.2 million from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program statewide. In Aroostook County, 13,640 received $4.4 million, according to a Department of Health and Human Services January report,
The statewide Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Parents as Scholars programs totaled $2.7 million for 4,333 cases and in The County $194,760 for 312 cases, the report said.
“Right now we still have an oversaturation of people that are on the sidelines,” Stewart said, referring to welfare recipients. “I think we need to look at work requirements.”
Nonetheless, a November Columbia University study indicates that 60 percent of families taken off TANF support in the study remained unemployed with no formal labor market earnings after losing benefits.
“These findings combined show that families who are kicked off of TANF are, on average, poorer as a result of losing benefits,” researchers said. “Removing women with children from welfare – or placing onerous restrictions on their welfare use – does not succeed in making them financially independent.”
Child welfare is another caucus priority, Stewart said.
“We’re headed in the wrong way, in my opinion. The Department of Health and Human Services is the largest organization in the state. There really ought to be more accountability and [we need to ] ultimately provide them with the resources they need so that we don’t lose another child in Maine.”
In 2021, 25 Maine children died in incidents tied to the child welfare system, the worst year on record for child deaths.
“Increasingly there are cases and situations where the Department had sufficient facts to determine that the child was unsafe but did not recognize the risk to the children and act accordingly,” according to the Maine Child Welfare Services Ombudsman’s most recent report.
The report pointed to substantial issues in the way cases were handled; out of the 85 cases closed in 2022, 46 had substantial issues.
During Monday’s town Council meeting, Houlton Town Councilor Sue Tortello asked Sen. Stewart to clarify the meaning of a current piece of legislation, LD 191, co-sponsored by Stewart.
The bill, currently in committee, is targeted at Whole Foods banning Maine lobster from being sold while at the same time taking advantage of state tax breaks, Stewart explained.
“We are trying to bring Whole Foods out of the twilight zone and into reality,” Stewart said. “If you want to be able to take advantage of Maine’s tax codes and Maine’s taxpayers, you can’t be boycotting and damaging the reputation of our lobster industry that employs thousands of Maine people. It’s a billion-dollar industry for our state.”
