State Sen. Bill Diamond’s tenure in state government spans almost 30 years, giving him a unique perspective on the current financial crisis facing Maine and most of the nation. After winning re-election to the state Senate in November, Diamond was named chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs, which will play the lead legislative role in reviewing Gov. Baldacci’s two-year budget proposal.

The Lakes Region Weekly spoke with Diamond Jan. 10, the day after Gov. Baldacci unveiled the budget, which includes numerous cuts designed to meet an $838 million shortfall. Diamond discussed the budget cuts, their impact on state services, and how this budget crisis may change the way government does business. He also defended his proposed bill to make driving while distracted – by anything from cell phone use to putting on makeup – a moving violation.

Q: First, your reaction to Gov. Baldacci’s two-year budget proposal.

A: I thought he did a good job. It’s a starting point. He has to get the budget to us and ready for us to use. Then we have to go through and dispose of the ideas. He proposes, and we dispose. But I was pleased for a number of reasons. One, there were no broad-based tax increases in it. No tax increases at all, actually, which I think is critical for people at this time. That set a nice tone for us in the Legislature that we are going to get through this together and we are not going to worry about partisanship.

Q: As you work through the proposal, are there any areas that stand out?

A: Corrections took a big hit, not only with layoffs but also with designing how they do business. Sending 118 inmates out of state, on paper I guess we are saving money, and we have to look at that, if we are saving money. But we have to examine closing down 94 beds at the Correctional Center in Windham, and we need to look at Charleston. Especially in Charleston, because what that is doing is that is closing down a situation where we are putting people back into society, and these people are one step from going back into society. They are training and learning skills. It’s a fabulous program, and to do away with that, we have to take a close look at that.

Q: Sending inmates out of state is troubling to some people.

A: Two years ago, when that was proposed, it didn’t fly in the Legislature, and it probably won’t fly this time. We are going to have to look at alternatives. But we just can’t say we aren’t going to do it and not find cuts elsewhere.

And that’s the difference between this Legislative budget and any in the past. We are saying to the committees, the Criminal Justice Committee, say. We are going to say to them, look, if you don’t want to send inmates out, if you don’t want to save “X” amount of dollars by doing that, then that’s fine. Find us another way to come up with that money, because we are not going to do it by raising taxes.

The best part of what he did in this budget is, in my opinion, there is no one $30 million thing, like there was with school consolidation. With school consolidation, we had $37 million (in savings), and if you took that out, where are you going to find $37 million? It’s a million dollars here, $2 million there, $5 million there, and all of that gives us a chance to find some alternatives.

Q: People are always concerned with cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services. How does this proposal treat DHHS?

A: DHHS with the two-year budget is relying on $98.9 million from the federal government that is part of the stimulus package. We are pretty sure that is coming, but it ain’t here yet. That’s why we’re are going to take a few months to get into this budget.

If that doesn’t come in, then we are in a huge mess. We’ll have to go back and look at more sorts of programs. But I’ve talked with Commissioner Brenda Harvey, and she is comfortable that no one is going to lose services. They are going to tighten up the service area they are providing, but those in need receiving services now will not lose it. We’ll have to follow it through to make sure that is what happens. It appears that what they’ve done by tightening up the programs is eliminated some of the periphery folks.

Q: Can you put the current financial situation in state and federal government in perspective?

A: I think it’s the worst I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen the ’91, ’92, ’93s – I was secretary of state then – and I’ve seen the late ’80s. But I’ve never seen a time where Maine is maybe not as bad off as the rest of the world, which reflects that we are in a rough situation nationwide. When you compare us to the rest of the states, ironically, we are not doing as bad as many. But still it’s the worst situation I’ve seen.

You’ve heard everybody say it as politicians, as candidates. We’ve all said we have to work together. We have no choice this time. We’ve got to work together. Anybody who decides to play partisan games, they are going to stick out like a sore thumb. I think most of the people I’ve talked with in Augusta, the ones who are involved in the decision making at least, understand that and really support that. Across the board, everybody is sharing the pain.

Q: How do the economic downturn and the budget cuts impact the state’s investments in things like transportation infrastructure and education? How will things look five, 10 years down the road?

A: What we can’t do in our effort to maintain this huge gap we have, to cut this $800-900 million, we also have to continue to invest. If we don’t in five years we are going to find ourselves really behind the eight ball. That investment can be in the form of bonds – highway bonds, infrastructure bonds, research and development bonds – as long as we stay within our bond limit.

We just can’t cut everything, go down with a $6.1 billion budget and walk away and say, yeah, we solved our problem, because I think we’d have our head stuck in the sand. So we do need to invest and work with the university and the community college system through bonding. Whatever stimulus money we get we need to keep that as part of our agenda.

Q: You mentioned the federal stimulus package. How do you decide which projects will receive funding from that package?

A: The federal government wants shovel-ready jobs and projects, and we have those. So part of our priority setting is, we don’t want to wait 12 months or 18 months before we start a project. We have to have items that have more of an immediate result as opposed to a long-term result.

Q: But a lot of these projects will be similar, just in different areas of the state. How do you prioritize projects that are basically the same? You’ll get a lot of different groups arguing that their project is needed the most.

A: First off, we get the ones that are ready. And then within that group, we’ll have to set priorities. I can’t tell you what they’ll be, but we’ll have to set priorities. We have to make sure that we look at need. We don’t just want to do a project because it’s ready. We want to do a project because it’s ready and there’s need and it’s going to give us results.

Q: Will this economic situation change the way government is structured? It sounds like the budget cuts will force everybody to look at fundamental changes.

A: When I say that it’s the worst time that I’ve seen, I think that also means that we are going to get changes in how we do our business. Maybe in some ways it gives us a chance to take a fresh look at things, which we haven’t had to do in the past. This may give us an opportunity to tighten the ship and look at programs we haven’t had to.

I think at the end of this, if we keep our priorities about investing, keep the budget pretty much where it is, with no tax increases, then it is going to cause us to rearrange government, just like DHHS is already talking about doing. We can come out of this better.

Q: On my way here, I realized I had forgotten to put in my laundry. So I called home from my cell phone. What’s wrong with that?

A: Maybe nothing. I don’t have a bill that says you can’t do that. There has been some confusion on that. There will be several bills that will suggest prohibiting the use of cell phones. I’m not sure we need to do that.

I’m more concerned with distractions of any kind. I don’t have the answers yet, but I’m looking for a way for the police to maybe have that as an aggravating factor on an existing crime, or somehow allow them to take action.

Now with technology, there are so many devices. You can’t list all those now, as they tried to do in the statute now. So talking with state police, they said can we talk about distraction in general.

Q: How do you define a distraction? Where does government stop telling me what I can and can’t do while driving?

A: Remember, our driver’s licenses are privileges … We allow police officers to make determinations on someone who crawls through a stop sign or goes through a yellow light. If it is a dangerous situation, they might get a ticket. If it isn’t, they might not.

My point is, is if it is something to deal with safety, and that it’s fair and practical and there’s common sense to it and it allows the judgement of the police officer to be used but to also be examined in court, then I don’t have a problem with that.

Last year, we passed a law that everyone agreed with mostly, that says if you are under 18 you can’t be using a cell phone and texting. So, the 17 year old can’t but the 19 year old can? It doesn’t make sense. It’s one of those things that should be vetted. Let’s run it through the public hearing process, and if it’s got legs, let’s keep it, and if it doesn’t, let’s get rid of it.