Members of the state committee charged with assessing the effectiveness of Maine’s economic incentive programs want answers to questions they have been posing since 2006 and hope one of the administration’s top commissioners can provide them.

George Gervais, commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development, is expected to appear before the Government Oversight Committee on Thursday in Augusta. The committee has a raft of questions about the definition, coordination and effectiveness of Maine’s 15 tax incentive programs, as well as some quasi-state organizations such as the Milk Commission, the Governor’s Training Initiative and the Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

The meeting, which will convene at 9 a.m. in the Cross Building, is intended to follow up on recommendations made in a 2006 evaluation of programs by the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability that showed inadequate accountability. Lawmakers are trying to strengthen oversight of nearly 50 tax incentive programs that were worth $300 million in the last fiscal year.

OPEGA director Beth Ashcroft said in May that the DECD, under whose authority the tax incentive programs lie, has not provided performance information on individual programs that will allow legislators to understand and make decisions on specific programs. Furthermore, the department “has not initiated any efforts … toward achieving standardized reporting to provide transparency and accountability.”

In a separate agenda item, lawmakers are considering a public inquiry into the Maine New Markets Investment Capital program, through which $16 million in state tax credits were awarded to out-of-state investors in a failed effort to revive the Great Northern Paper mill in East Millinocket. Loans issued through the program were not used to modernize the mill, as described in the initial application, and the mill’s closure and subsequent bankruptcy left more than 200 unemployed.

Although the program has been used successfully to leverage private money in other business efforts, it came under heightened scrutiny following a five-month Maine Sunday Telegram investigation that showed improper use of taxpayer money in the Great Northern project and several others.