Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

February 4, 2011

Efficiency promoters paid well, fall short

By Tux Turkel tturkel@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

A federally funded energy education program that's being phased out amid controversy spent nearly half of its money on salaries, records show.

The Maine Green Energy Alliance used $163,220 to support nine full-time and four part-time employees, as well as an executive director with an annual salary of $80,000.

About half of the staff served as organizers and outreach workers to encourage residents in eight targeted communities to weatherize their homes. Others offered telephone support for residents who were trying to finance and carry out home energy audits or insulation jobs.

Altogether, the alliance spent $355,836 from August through the end of 2010 to schedule 200 energy audits and help complete 50 home retrofits. Facing mounting criticism for the slow progress, the group's board of directors voted last week to finish ongoing work and close by early March.

The alliance had a one-year budget of $1.1 million from the federal Department of Energy. It will turn over its balance -- projected to be at least $500,000 after January's expenses are tallied -- to Efficiency Maine Trust, a quasi-state agency that oversees the state's weatherization efforts. The alliance also will forfeit an additional $2 million that could have been made available over the next two years.

The alliance's money will fortify a popular and successful program that gives homeowners rebates to offset the cost of insulating their homes. The program has paid out $5.5 million to weatherize 1,700 homes, but the rebate money is nearly exhausted.

As the alliance winds down, the group's executive director and officials with Efficiency Maine Trust are defending what it set out to do.

The alliance was just ramping up, they say, for what was expected to be a long-term education effort to boost the number of weatherized homes in Maine. When it became clear that the effort was slower and more labor-intensive than planned, officials said they acted responsibly to end the program and redirect money to the rebates for homeowners.

"This was intended to be a three-year program," said Seth Murray, the alliance's executive director. "We were trying to learn what was effective."

The Maine Green Energy Alliance operated under a contract with Efficiency Maine Trust. The trust, created by the Legislature, is overseen by an independent board. That arrangement will prompt lawmakers to examine the trust's operations and the spending record of the alliance, said Rep. Stacey Fitts, R-Pittsfield, who co-chairs the committee that handles energy issues.

The role of the alliance came under scrutiny early this week, after an article was published by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting. Among other things, it called into question the group's origins and the influence of the Democratic administration of former Gov. John Baldacci.

Fitts said he's less interested in rehashing the politics and history than understanding how the money was spent. A larger issue, he said, is whether Maine lawmakers should have more scrutiny over the trust, which generally is funded through federal grants and utility surcharges and is operating under a three-year plan approved by the Legislature.

"My specific concern is how free people are with federal money, and how easy it is for that money to be lost in the shuffle," Fitts said.

This hard winter and rising petroleum prices are underscoring Maine's vulnerability to high energy costs. Most of the state's homes are poorly insulated, and seven out of 10 heat with oil.

The nonprofit Maine Green Energy Alliance was set up as a new approach to tackling the problem. The idea was to partner with municipal leaders, civic groups and concerned citizens to upgrade energy efficiency, town by town.

(Continued on page 2)

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