5 days ago
Care workers gather at Maine State House to join call for wage increases
Jun. 5—AUGUSTA — Shawna Ferris said her finances are stretched so thin that she's had to purchase heating oil 5 gallons at a time.
Ferris, a 44-year-old from Mattawamkeag, was one of dozens of direct care workers who joined House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, at a State House news conference Thursday to urge lawmakers and the governor to approve cost-of-living increases for Maine's direct care workforce as part of the state's new two-year budget.
"Their pay should reflect the hard work these people put in every single day," said Fecteau, whose mother is a direct care worker.
Direct care workers include nursing home employees, people who staff group homes for those with mental health or intellectual disabilities, in-home respite care providers, and any number of jobs to help people with daily living tasks.
Workers who joined the news conference held signs behind Fecteau that said "Quality Care Deserves Quality Pay" and "My Bills Went Up, My Pay Did Not. COLAS Now."
The COLA increases vary by year, but are tied to inflation , and would have been 3.5% in 2025. The estimated cost to the state budget — through the federal-state Medicaid program — would be $84 million over the two years. But the state funding would also draw down $137 million in federal funds that would go to about 24,000 direct care workers.
The workers are paid by the private employers, but the ability of the nonprofits to increase wages is directly tied to whether the state boosts Medicaid reimbursement rates to pay for raises.
Ferris works in group homes for adults with intellectual disabilities, and she said the pay is so low that she is struggling to earn enough to pay for groceries.
"Every penny counts," said Ferris, who makes $20 per hour working full-time. "I have never thought about leaving my job, because I love my job so much and the clients depend on us. But I have thought about picking up a second job."
The low pay is contributing to a severe shortage of such workers as employees are lured away by higher wages in less demanding service sector jobs.
Shannon Marquis, who operates a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities for the Independence Association in Brunswick, said people are going to leave the direct care workforce if they don't get raises over the next two years. That means group homes will close.
"You can make more money at McDonald's right now than what we can pay," Marquis said. "The pay does not match the quality of services that the people provide. If there's no money for raises, where are these people going to go?"
Ferris said she does everything from cooking and cleaning to helping clients with daily hygiene, and helping them with their medications. When she can, she helps them become more independent, such as training her clients to call the doctor's office for medication refills.
A 3.5% COLA was set to go into effect as part of Maine's Medicaid budget in January but was canceled by Gov. Janet Mills, with administration officials saying that budgetary constraints led to the COLA being nixed. The Legislature this session passed a 1.95% COLA increase to make up for part of the loss of the 2025 COLAs, but there's no COLA increases in Mills' budget proposal for 2026 and 2027.
Fecteau hopes Mills will agree to provide the full COLA increase for 2026-27, plus restore the 3.5% COLA for 2025, and that the measure passes the House and Senate.
Fecteau said that, based on his conversations with Mills, he doesn't believe she is opposed to the concept of giving the workers COLA increases, but is concerned about how to pay for it.
"If we are able to find a way forward, I think the governor would back it," Fecteau said.
BUDGET CONSTRAINTS
Mills' office provided a written response to questions about the COLAs Thursday, saying the financial pressures on the state have only worsened since the governor proposed the budget.
"With state revenues leveling off — and cuts likely coming from the president and Republicans in Congress, including for critical programs like Medicaid — the governor strongly believes the time for hard budget decisions is here and now," it said.
"As a result of these budget constraints, the Department of Health and Human Services was unable to distribute the January 2025 COLA increase and proposed suspending COLA adjustments for the biennium. However, the department has focused on prioritizing funding to maintain current rates and to avoid cuts to rates. That is why the governor asked the Legislature for additional funding to cover the budget gap in the current fiscal year, along with $122 million to stabilize MaineCare moving forward."
With the COLAs, nonprofits should be able to pay their workers $18.31 per hour, or 125% of the state minimum wage of $14.65 per hour. A separate bill by Fecteau that would have been more generous to direct care workers, mandating that they be paid 140% of the minimum wage, stalled in this year's session, and was carried over to the 2026 legislative session.
The Maine Center for Economic Policy, a progressive think tank, has estimated that 23,500 hours per week of home care for older adults went unserved in 2024 because of the workforce shortage.
Arthur Phillips, economic policy analyst for the Maine Center for Economic Policy, said that "we need to stop balancing budgets on the backs of our most essential, and undervalued, voters."
The proposal has attracted bipartisan support, with Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, backing the COLA increase. Poirier works as a community living coordinator for Living Innovations, a nonprofit provider for adults with intellectual disabilities.
"It's extremely difficult to recruit and maintain staffing," Poirier said. "We need to restore the full COLAs in the budget."
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