AUGUSTA – Senate Democrats prevented passage of an emergency budget for the Department of Health and Human Services late Thursday, in a surprise ending to a tense week of negotiations.

The $121 million package to close a budget shortfall in the DHHS got strong bipartisan support earlier in the night as the House voted 109-27 to approve it. But the proposal fell two votes short of the two-thirds needed for final passage in the 35-member Senate. The vote for passage was 22-13, with 12 of the 15 Senate Democrats voting against the plan.

Republicans were pushing for swift passage because the DHHS stands to run out of money in April. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Debra Plowman, R-Hampden, said lawmakers who voted against the plan “have just jeopardized the safety net” of health and human services.

Democrats said they could not approve a budget that would end Medicaid health insurance for 14,000 parents and close the Medicaid health insurance program for adults who don’t have children.

Sen. Phil Bartlett, D-Gorham, said Democrats need more time to look for alternatives.

“A lot of us felt we were hurting too many Maine people,” he said. “We don’t think we should be picking some winners and some losers.”

The House and Senate have adjourned until Tuesday. It was unclear late Thursday whether a new round of budget negotiations would start during this holiday weekend.

The votes Thursday night followed last-minute negotiations to remove pieces of the package that raised House conservatives’ concerns about taxes, and to provide additional funding to hospitals to gain House Democrats’ support.

Senate Democrats said they felt left out of the process and disagreed with changes that were meant to appease conservatives and Gov. Paul LePage.

Senate President Kevin Raye, R-Perry, called the Senate Democrats’ action “puzzling,” especially given the strong bipartisan support in the House and his belief that the compromise would have avoided a veto by the governor.

“The irresponsible action of Senate Democrats in playing Russian roulette with the DHHS budget puts at risk the well-being of Maine’s most vulnerable citizens and the health care providers who serve them,” Raye said in a prepared statement.

The budget gained easy passage in the House after Patrick Flood, R-Winthrop, House chairman of the Appropriations Committee, offered an amendment to bring the conservatives on board.

The amendment called for a tax that’s paid on health insurance claims to decrease, and for hospitals to get more money than originally proposed.

The package to address a $121 million shortfall in the fiscal year that ends June 30 would shift more than $60 million from next fiscal year to this one, prohibit new enrollment in the Medicaid health insurance program for childless adults, and discontinue Medicaid health insurance for 14,000 parents.

Plowman said the measure must be passed well before April because that’s when the DHHS is scheduled to run out of money. Democrats said they believe they have until April to find other solutions.

Assistant Senate Minority Leader Justin Alfond, D-Portland, said he could not support the budget because it is “based on a manufactured crisis.”

While it would save state money on Medicaid, it would increase costs to cities and towns, he said.

Senate Democrats objected to Flood’s amendment, saying it had been negotiated behind closed doors without a chance for public comment. Sen. Elizabeth Schneider, D-Orono, tried to send the bill back to the Appropriations Committee for more vetting, but could not get enough support for her motion.

“In the past, as Democrats, we have been called out for doing things behind closed doors in the middle of the night,” she said. “I believe the process has been corrupted.”

Schneider’s statement about the middle of the night prompted Raye to announce that it was 6:20 p.m.

Sen. Cynthia Dill, D-Cape Elizabeth, said she felt that “a radical element in the House” forced Flood’s amendment to be offered even after the budget had received unanimous support from the Appropriations Committee.

Democrats in both chambers offered various amendments, all of which were voted down.

Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, offered an amendment to require the “wealthiest 1 percent of Maine residents to pay at least the same average state and local tax rate as all other Maine residents.”

He called it “tax fairness” and said it would provide enough money — an estimated $66 million — to more than replace the need for cuts to Medicaid.

During the House debate, Flood acknowledged that not everyone was happy with the cuts and funding shifts needed to balance the budget.

“There is no joy in the discussion of, or passage of, L.D. 1816,” he said. “This bill doesn’t go far enough. Yet this bill goes too far. We understand that.”

Rep. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, said House Democrats don’t like the budget, but supported it in a spirit of compromise.

“Democrats don’t agree that taking health care away from people who need it most will solve budget problems,” she said.

MaineToday Media State House Writer Susan Cover can be contacted at 620-7015 or at:

scover@mainetoday.com