For the Department of Marine Resources (DMR), Maine’s $1.1 billion revenue shortfall translates into a $1.9 million cut in the department’s budget for 2003-2004.
According to DMR Commis-sioner George Lapointe, a cutback from $10.9 million to $9 million means that programs paid for out of the general fund – the Marine Patrol, and public health and shellfish – will feel the cuts most severely.
Fortunately, much of the department’s budget comes from non-general fund sources.
Lapointe outlined DMR’s plan to achieve the required cuts:
* The Marine Patrol will move to a slower maintenance schedule.
* The department will reduce the turnover in computers and other capital expenditures.
* Some jobs funded by the general fund will be eliminated: 12 DMR personnel have been notified that their jobs will be terminated beginning in July 2003.
* The Marine Patrol will lose four officers, dropping its ranks from 54 to 50. (Because there are two vacancies in the Marine Patrol only two officers will be let go.) Fewer officers, Lapointe said, means less overall enforcement and less day-to-day working with coastal communities.
* The bio-toxin laboratory will lose three researchers. Lapointe expects shellfish closure areas in the future will last longer and will cover larger areas.
* DMR also loses one maintenance staff and the position of fish pathologist. The state’s salmon aquaculture farms will feel the loss of the pathologist the most.
Lapointe’s budget also recommends that two positions in the lobster program and two in the sea urchin program lose their general fund dollars, but be paid through the lobster tag fund and the urchin surcharge fund, respectively.
In past 15 years – in the late 1980s and again in 1994 – Maine state government has gone through two other difficult budget crises that brought on deep cuts in spending.
“Anything called fat is long gone,” said Lapointe. He gave credit to Deputy Commissioner Penn Estabrook and Director of Administrative Services Bert Bilodeau for managing DMR’s budget so well in rocky times.
The department’s philosophy in making the cuts was to “target specific programs rather than reduce everything by a percentage,” said Lapointe.
The Legislature’s joint Appropriations Committee wants to have the budget completed by April. Lapointe urged stakeholders to attend that committee’s hearings and speak up for Maine’s marine resources.
The Commissioner noted that all departments are forced to make difficult cuts. “The Department of Conservation lost 40 positions and Inland Fish and Wildlife (IFW) lost 30,” Lapointe said.