Public Policy Commons^™

2016 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast Celebration, University Of Maine Student Life

Cultural Affairs Distinguished Lecture Series

Alison Beyea is the Executive Director of the ACLU of Maine, where she oversees the organization's legal, legislative, public education and development activities. With 3,000 members, the ACLU of Maine is the state's oldest and largest civil liberties organization.

The state of the union from the Citizen's Perspective delivered by Alison Beyea will be the focus of a keynote address at the 20th annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast on Jan. 18, 2016 sponsored by the Greater Bangor Area NAACP and the University of Maine. Keynote Speaker Alison Beyea will speak on current national affairs and trends, education, …

Bite-Sized Democracy: The Virtues Of Incremental Change, Peter Mills

Maine Policy Review

In the Margaret Chase Smith Essay, Peter Mills draws on his long years of public service in both houses of the Maine Legislature to reflect on the values of gradual, incremental change in public policy.

Performance Government In Maine: The Effort To Make State Government More Efficient, Responsive, And Accountable, Bruce Clary, Barton Wechsler

Maine Policy Review

Maine, like the federal government and many other states, has embarked upon a major initiative to change how government conducts its business. At the federal level this initiative has been called the National Performance Review. Spearheaded by Vice President Al Gore, its goal is nothing short of reinventing government so it performs better, costs less, and gets results. Today, many states have undertaken initiatives similar to the National Performance Review and the general term used to describe these activities is “performance government.” In Maine, a 1991 Special Commission on Governmental Restructuring marks the first time this concept was seriously talked …

Performance Government: A Roundtable Discussion

Maine Policy Review

Many states have undertaken initiatives similar to the National Performance Review; the general term used to describe these activities is “performance government.” Although performance government may apply to a wide range of administrative changes, it most typically applies to three reform initiatives: strategic planning, performance budgeting and performance contracting. Maine has been reinventing its government systems to include each of these components. This roundtable discussion, co-facilitated and co-edited by Bruce Clary and Barton Wechsler, features eight individuals who have been helping to shape the reinvention of Maine state government: besides Clary and Wechsler, these include: Carolyn Ball, Charles Colgan, Merton …

Maine’S Dubious Odyssey Into The Funding Of Local Government, Peter Mills

Maine Policy Review

Despite recent reforms to Maine’s school funding, State Senator Peter Mills argues that the formula will not be truly “fixed” until the state addresses the municipal side of property tax inequities. To that end, he prescribes some tough medicine for Maine policymakers to relieve the disproportionate tax burden on the state’s service center communities. Among other things, he suggests we consider repealing some of the exemptions that exclude a quarter of all property from taxation; permitting service centers to adopt local option taxes; and injecting the state’s limited revenue sharing funds into just those municipalities with intolerable tax burdens that …

One Question At A Time, Please!, Chris Spruce

Maine Policy Review

In the Margaret Chase Smith Essay, Chris Spruce addresses the conundrum of public referenda, championed by many as the most direct form of democracy and criticized by others for creating winners and losers without the traditional give and take of American politics. He reviews the recent history of public referenda in Maine, including the recent clear-cutting initiative. Perhaps we lose more than we gain when we oversimplify complex public issues with inherently conflicting values biases.