AUGUSTA (AP) – Legislative budget writers who have solicited suggestions from the public in their effort to squeeze out $10.1 million in new state government savings have received several hundred proposals through a virtual suggestion box created by the Appropriations Committee staff.

Reducing the size of the Legislature is popular. So is curbing welfare.

Ideas abound, many echoing others. Merge these state departments. Eliminate those state agencies. Offer bonuses to penny-pinching administrators. Cut back on state cars.

A common theme is having government do less.

“Stop competing with Maine businesses,” counsels one respondent. “Have each department do an internal audit. If existing work duplicates that done in the private sector … stop doing it!”

But there were some calls for government to do more.

“Spend money – Yes, that’s right – we need to spend money to make Maine people better educated and to attract businesses to the state,” argued another respondent. “We are always trying to nickel and dime ourselves in Maine – when what we need is some ways to bring real money into the Maine coffers.”

In addition to appealing for public input, the Appropriations Committee has asked state agencies to come forward with ways to meet – in fact, more than meet – the panel’s savings target.

Looking for $30 million in departmental savings suggestions, the committee gave the agencies until last Friday and will convene Thursday to begin sifting through the results.

The agency proposals are unlikely to include the philosophizing contained in many of the public comments.

“If you can’t outsource the activities of the following groups,” one suggestion box proposal read, “why can’t the Department of Conservation be combined with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Atlantic Salmon Commission, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, Department of Marine Resources, Maine Port Authority and the Department of Environmental Protection. It would do a better job at protecting the environment and eliminate redundant and/or conflicting regulatory nightmares. Call it the Department of Environmental and Wildlife Conservation and show the rest of the country what environmental leadership is all about.”

Read another: “Cut by at least one half the Legislature. Not only would that save the cost of those saved positions, it would hopefully cut nearly in half the number of bills introduced by legislatures. This would be a tremendous savings directly and indirectly as less invasive and frivolous bills would be debated and considered.

“In fact I always feel safer when the Legislature is not in session. It seems that taxpayers are always in jeopardy when the Legislature is in session as they tend to create new expenses to be funded and paid for without regard to the grief that causes the citizens of Maine.”

The $6.3 billion biennial General Fund budget enacted in June includes a directive for a sweeping reorganization of Maine’s sprawling public school system network, with first-year savings pegged at $36.5 million.

Local communities are due to file initial reports by the end of the week.

AP-ES-08-26-07 1218EDT