AUGUSTA – Maine does a good job of protecting the well-being of its kids, but Michael Petit, former commissioner of Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services, says the federal government is letting them down.

A new report released by Petit’s nonpartisan group based in Washington, D.C., ranks Maine children 10th in the country for what it calls “well-being.”

Maine kids are less likely to die, be imprisoned or live in poverty, than kids in most other states, according to the study by Every Child Counts.

Petit said the report reflects a long-standing Maine tradition of taking care of its children.

“What we are looking at over the last couple of decades is a very sharp decline in spending on kids as part of the domestic federal agenda,” said Petit, who worked as Maine’s DHHS commissioner in Gov. Joe Brennan’s administration. “Maine fares much better than most other states that have comparable income levels because the state makes certain investments.”

Dr. Dora Mills, Maine’s public health director, said she’s not surprised Maine did well in the report and agreed with Petit that the state has succeeded by establishing children’s health as a priority.

“We’ve traditionally scored very well on these child health indicators relative to other states,” said Mills. “We usually have low infant mortality and low teen birth rates. But those indicators have not happened by accident. They are the result of investment and strategies that are implemented across the state.”

Mills said in the 1970s and 1980s, Maine had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country, so the state organized a task force to address the problem.

“They issued a major report in 1986 that provided a road map that was followed,” she said. “There were purposeful strategies implemented and in the 1990s we had the steepest decline in the county in teen pregnancy.”

Petit said recent federal cutbacks have handcuffed many states’ ability to take care of their children.

“The reality is that Maine is never going to be able to raise enough dough to take care of these problems on its own,” he said.

“The problem is the feds are collecting the money and they are diverting it into other areas. People are critical of what they call tax and spend. Well, there’s one thing that’s worse than that, and it’s don’t tax and spend.”

Mills said federal cutbacks are the reason Maine does not provide as many vaccines to families as it did even three years ago.

“The number of immunizations that we can provide has dwindled,” she said. “We’re only providing about half of the vaccines that we used to provide so families are having a lot harder time finding the vaccines in Maine because of the federal cutbacks.”

She cautioned that vaccinations are the “electricity and water” for public health, indicating that fewer vaccines could translate to bigger problems for children down the road.

Petit said Maine has done a good job of prioritizing its kids despite limited resources, but there’s still room for improvement.

“Maine should take a lot of pride in itself,” he said. “But it deserves a lot more support from Washington. To the one kid that’s hungry, it’s no consolation that nine others are not.”