HOULTON, Maine — On Monday, the Maine State Employees Association, SEIU Local 1989 filed for an immediate injunction in Caribou District Court to stop the closing of the Maine Revenue Services office in Houlton, allowing 12 workers to keep working pending a full review by the Legislature, as set out in state law.
“We ask the court to grant our motion for injunctive relief and allow these workers to keep working,” said Ginette Rivard, president of MSEA-SEIU Local 1989. “In their hasty action to close this revenue producing office, the LePage administration went beyond the true intent of the biennial budget and skirted the legislative review required by state law as set forth in the FY ’14 – FY ’15 state budget.”
Part F of the biennial budget sets forth a process by which the Governor’s Office of Policy and Management would identify, among other savings, proposed position eliminations and bring those back to the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee for review by Sept. 30.
“Instead of following the intent of the budget passed by the Legislature, Governor LePage decided to once again go it alone and ignore the will of the Legislature and its bi-partisan budget law,” said Rivard. “We ask that the Governor start working together with the Legislature to create jobs and economic development instead of continuing his campaign against Maine’s working families.”
