Recently in Open Government News Category

The Maine Teachers Union met Tuesday night with more than 200 teachers and several members of the Maine Legislature at the Augusta Civic Center to discuss their options to deal with a $34 million decrease in state aid to schools.

They could start by not holding expensive meetings to talk about it, or running ad campaings designed to scare you into submission.

Not surprisingly, their well thought-out answer was to call on the Maine Legislature to raise your taxes.

Interestingly, the three teachers quoted in the article were all music teachers...Some highlights from their interviews, accompanied by their 2009 salaries, exclusive of benefits. *source, MaineOpenGov.org:

"Without increased revenue, we will be forced to make drastic cuts," Patti English, a Winthrop music teacher - 2009 Salary, exclusive of benefits: $51,816

"The cuts to funding of education will send the state backwards," said Larry Morrissette, a Maranacook High School music teacher - 2009 Salary, exclusive of benefits: $54,532


I'll let you decide what's motivating these desperate pleas to raise your taxes...

Find all school employee salaries and school spending information on MaineOpenGov.org.
 

Two quick thoughts about Obama's directive to make government more accountable.

First, he asked this directive (11 pages total) to be drafted on January 21st, 2009. It's now December 8, 2009, almost a full year later.

Second, one of the very first items on the directive is the date, which reads "December 8, 2008". Ummm...isn't it 2009?

Government...they can't get the date right, can we expect them to offer true transparency?

Senate President and Gubernatorial candidate Libby Mitchell (D), as well as Blaine House hopeful Senator Peter Mills (R) are upset because there isn't enough taxpayer dollars to fund their personal campaigns for the state's top job.

The two candidates, among others, are running "clean", with clean elections funds that are drawn from taxpayer dollars. Each candidate will get $400,000 for the primary and $600,000 for the general election initially and could receive up to double that amount in matching funds.

So Sen. Mitchell and Sen. Mills want to use your money to run their campaigns, but that's not enough. Now, with word that the clean elections money is underfunded (doesn't Sen. Mitchell have to take some responsibility for that as President of the Senate?) these two entrenched Augusta politicians are asking for special permission  to raise money to go along with the millions of taxpayer dollars they will undoubtedly receive to run their campaigns.

Two long-time Augusta insiders with lots of connections to fund-raise who have chosen to take public money (lots of it) to campaign with are now whining because they might not get every dime they need. Now they want favors from their August friends to allow them to have it both ways.

What's "clean" about that?

This is a state government blog. But without question, the HR 3962 bill, or the health care "reform" bill, that will be voted on soon by our U.S. House of Representatives, has a huge impact on Maine and it's businesses and people. We're posting about the bill here in the name of greater overall government transparency.

So what exactly does the bill do, and how should Reps. Pingree and Michaud vote on the bill?

Take a look yourself and then let them know.

HR 3962 Summary (read it and weep): "Complete Summary"

A couple excerpts (warning, some readers will find this offensive. May not be appropriate reading for intelligent, reasoning, or freedom loving Americans): Individuals. Individuals are required to obtain health insurance coverage or pay a fee equal to lower of 2.5 percent of their adjusted income...Government responsibility. It is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that essential health coverage is affordable and available to all Americans...

Happy reading. 

HR 3962 - Full Text (if you even scan the whole thing you'll be more informed than our Reps. I'll bet): All 1,992 pages of so called "reform"

In an effort to make Maine more transparent, MaineOpenGov.org has been working to collect spending data from municipalities and school districts in Maine.

Local governments have been wary about giving out this public information, with many towns refusing, stalling or asking for large sums of money to hand over town spending data. You will recount the tale of the Town of Alfred - who spent time and money to get back at The Maine Heritage Policy Center for a request for Alfred town data.

A recent story in the SeaCoastOnline shed some light into the situation, detailing the case of several town officials who refused the mandatory training that would help educate them on Right-to-Know issues and Maine's Freedom of Access laws.

Keeping public information hidden from citizens and taxpayers and refusing required training to help them uphold their duties is not what is needed from local officials in tough economic times and it begs the question - what is there to hide? 

If you are interested in putting your towns spending online, contact MaineOpenGov.org at info@maineopengov.org.