AUGUSTA — Dale McCormick, director of the Maine State Housing Authority, called an emergency meeting late last week with stakeholders of Elm Terrace, a 35-unit affordable housing project in Portland. McCormick had bad news for those assembled at the University of Southern Maine’s Glickman Library. Elm Terrace, she said, was too expensive.  In late September, […]

AUGUSTA — State lawmakers Tuesday failed to complete a deal designed to ensure that Maine’s clean elections law remains viable for legislative candidates. Negotiations stalled on the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee after lawmakers failed to agree on how much taxpayer funding should support publicly financed candidates. The impasse followed calls to quickly amend […]

AUGUSTA — Earlier this month, Gov. Paul LePage announced that his administration was undertaking a new effort to tackle improper unemployment payments and fraud, a problem that cost state employers about $6.5 million last year. The governor’s initiative came on the heels of President Barack Obama’s mandate that all states adopt mitigation overpayment strategies by […]

AUGUSTA — This past summer, Gov. Paul LePage addressed lawmakers to evaluate the hits and misses of the legislative session. A significant failure, in the governor’s opinion, was the Legislature’s inability to lower the state’s energy costs. At the time, LePage blamed lawmakers for balking at his proposal to scrap a state mandate to increase […]