Gov. Janet Mills announced $4 million June 7 from the Maine Jobs and Recovery Program for job creation and employment recovery for the healthcare workforce. Mills made the announcement at Sheepscot Valley Health Center in Coopers Mills before touring Washburn and Doughty and Bigelow Laboratory in East Boothbay and Lincolnville Communications in Nobleboro.

The $4 million is part of a $20 million initiative, the Governor's Jobs Plan. Details include healthcare training programs, tuition help for employees and employers enrolling in training, healthcare career navigators and two healthcare career campaigns.

Washburn and Doughty President Katie Doughty Maddox welcomed Mills and her entourage at the company’s main office where they discussed everything from company achievements to the woes of supply chain issues and workforce housing. Maddox said her company’s workforce is at about 75% capacity with some commuting from as far as Augusta every morning.

“I think people look at Lincoln County and say 'Oh, that's our wealthiest county in the state.' Well, that doesn't get us very far if there's no place for young people,” said Maddox. “In the past year, we've lost two key management employees ... One ... is now working … remotely, huge bump in pay, and still living here. It's tough to compete with that.”

Citing mild successes for housing in other mainstay industries like Sugarloaf’s purchase of Herbert Hotel in Kingfield and Greenville’s medical personnel housing initiative, Mills said the Boothbay region’s issues boil down to its limits in area and price, and the increase of second homes and short-term vacation rentals.

Maddox said part of local concerns are those vacation rentals through companies like Vrbo, SecondHome and AirBnB have helped weaken local housing availability. The playing field is no longer level, she said. “It truly is becoming Zoom-town … We need a way to disincentivize owning a second home for income.”

Mills said with the passage of LD 2003, an act to allow accessory dwelling units, recent legislation on tiny homes and other housing and development standards, and the recently approved supplemental budget, the state has been trying to lift barriers and help make new and existing housing attainable where possible. Some of the burden will fall to towns to mesh local codes with the region’s needs, she said.

While the long-term solutions continue to come together, Mills said it is cold comfort for many Maine workers and businesses in need of immediate relief.

“I think people are getting imaginative about this, but we are hearing about it everywhere,” said Mills. “People are having to dig deep in their pockets because they can't wait for the developers to do a 50-condo brick and mortar (building). They've got to look for immediate and temporary housing.”

The Emergency Housing Relief Fund, $22 million from the supplemental budget, will help people who are homeless get rental help, and launching the Housing Opportunity Fund helps towns expand housing opportunities, Mills said. LD 2003 also provides funds for towns to have planning consultants help parse local ordinances for potential changes.

Said Maddox, “We're trying to get ourselves to a normal trajectory, but it's been very challenging … We're constantly under threat if somebody can't find housing they might have to leave. Sometimes we're successful and we help them find housing. Sometimes, they don't.”

In a follow-up interview with the Boothbay Register, Mills talked about current efforts to make Maine more family friendly, to help foster a workforce that can meet the demand of industrial jobs like those at Washburn and Doughty, for healthcare jobs to support Maine’s aging population, and keep Maine at the forefront of environmental research like what Bigelow Laboratory is doing.

“(We) began, during the pandemic, to develop an economic response commission and report (so) we had a plan in place when (ARPA) federal money came down the pipe. So, we presented to the legislature a plan that … looked at workforce, childcare, internet, those things that we need to attract young families and keep them here. The budget I signed just a month ago does a lot of that.”

Mills said to address childcare Maine needs expansion of the spaces for it, plus training of new early childhood educators and childcare personnel and better compensation for those services. She said Maine is addressing those needs in the budget by using American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds to aid expansion for things like YMCA-type childcare and licensed childcare facilities by expanding the physical space and stock.

“We're training up people in career and technical education and community colleges, (giving) two years of free tuition and a lot of it is early childhood training,” she said. “Stipends for existing childcare workers … started during the pandemic with federal funds, paying early childhood educators $200 a month extra to stay on the job. We've continued that in the state budget “

Mills said she has toured several childcare facilities and been impressed with how they were able to respond with the extra funds. “It's a growing need and the state is doing what it can to support them (and) families who depend on them to stay at work.”

Asked about the rest of Maine’s immediate worries like rising gas, heating oil and food prices and other inflation, Mills said little can be done to change federal and global issues on a local level, but they are still problems that require a response.

“What can one governor of a small rural state do about that? … I can't call up Vladimir Putin and ask him to get the heck out of Ukraine. I'd love to, but he won't take my calls. But what I can do is help Maine get through this inflationary period … That's why in our supplemental budget – which just passed in a unanimous committee report, a bipartisan budget – we are giving money back to the people of Maine. We were so fortunate through hard work and financial measures to have a surplus in the state budget. We want to give that back immediately; 60% of the surplus is going back to Maine people in the form of $850 checks. That's $1,700 for a family with two working people in it, probably one of the most effective measures of any state in the country right now. It's not targeted for X, Y, Z, but it's for Maine people to use as they wish and as they need. Whether it's for a grocery bill, for a utility bill, for gas (or) for heating fuel for next winter.”