The Mills administration is seeking an organization to award $300,000 to administer the state’s “social equity program,” a taxpayer-funded affirmative action business development initiative for disproportionately incarcerated, racial, ethnic or tribal populations, according to state contract documents published Friday.
Maine’s state government is now required to provide a social equity program after the passage of LD 1517, a bill first introduced by then-House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland) in July 2023.
The bill in its first incarnation was entitled “An Act to Create Equity in the State’s Cannabis Industry,” and was more targeted towards providing business support services to individuals previously convicted of and incarcerated for a cannabis-related crime.
Then-Speaker Talbot Ross revised the bill entirely in March 2024, renaming it “An Act to Establish the Social Equity Program,” and broadened the scope of the bill to direct the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development (MECD) to “increase workforce development programs and provide support to businesses owned by or individuals who are members of impacted communities.”
The more generic category “impacted communities” is defined in the bill, and in state contract documents, as a “racial, ethnic, tribal population that for the duration of the past 50 years has experienced incarceration at rates disproportionate to the population’s rate of criminality.”
The bill states that “impacted communities” have, as a result of disproportionate incarceration rates, “experienced direct or indirect discrimination in access to housing, employment and education.”
The social equity program would focus on providing business development support to members of “impacted communities” through outreach, technical assistance, funding, and education regarding available tax credits.
That program is now going to receive $300,000 in funding from the Mills administration, after MECD finds a contractor to administer the program.
The selected contractor will be responsible for program management, grant fund distribution, and stakeholder collaboration with state agencies and nonprofit organizations.
Approximately half of the social equity program’s funds will be allocated for direct business support in the form of seed grants.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="35038 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=35038">27 Comments
More money that we don’t have .
And the hits just keep on coming .
Janet Mills can’t leave Augusta soon enough .
Articles of Impeachment ….why not …the democrats will never allow it to happen but at least it’s on the record for 2026 .
IMPEACH JANET MILLS !
Don’t kid yourselves , Rachel Talbot Ross has a cousin who will walk away with the 300k.
Augusta is a overflowing cess pool .
Please god let this be a story from the onion or babylon bee.
They won’t stop until they’ve sufficiently lined their pockets and move to Florida
Augusta is once again out of step with the direction of America.
Maine is certainly a playground for evil. Satan is certainly laughing at how stupid the electorate can be fooled.
Any way Mills can buy leftist votes with our money is fine with her and her Marxist Fellow Travelers.
RTR is Maine’s poster child for social justice warriors who love spending taxpayer’s money on perceived causes that have no bearing on reality.
The illegal pot farms, that have slave labor?
Define equity
There’s a reason why certain ethnic groups are incarcerated at a higher level, they committed more crimes!! And RTR must dream up more programs to fund with Mainers hard earned tax money, Janet loves other people’s money! C’mon man!
How are we going to pay for that?
More tax increases ?
Do the democrats and mills just try to find ways to bury us in debt and taxes?
This is absurd who want to have a business here in Maine?
The business atmosphere is garbage.
So Here we go with more DEI socialist programs that will hand out money to people and hope they have profitable business.
And what if the business fails , the tax payers lose.
Go to the bank and get your own loan using your own business plan, and put up your own equity and money to start it.
Asking Maine tax payers to fund this is disgusting.
You know that speaking poorly about Rachel Ross is hate speech don’t you ?
She’s the brain trust behind that …..
Racist Racist Racist
DOGE needs to visit
Tone deaf administration.
Mills and her clan learned noting from the November elections, he and her party will pay the price during the next elections, democrats need to step back and look at that the people want and adjust.
Sounds like pure racism
Where the hell is she supposedly getting all this moola to hand out??? Maybe it’s out of her own personal bank acct or her family’s… here’s hoping…
President Trump will soon be cutting federal funding to states involved with DEI.
Hey Toady Mills, you drive the state into bankruptcy! There isn’t any money to spend on any of your dumbass pet projects!
If ever a politician deserved to be tarred & feathered….
Problem is, the sick f*ck would probably enjoy it!
Toady Mills!
“…after MECD finds a contractor to administer the program”. Want to bet the “contractor” picked to administer the program will pocket most, if not all, of the $300,000 Mills gave for this sham???
Creating a program targeting people based on race and ethnicity………isn’t that…….. racist?
Waste of money. Thanks Democrats, the citizens will remember.
I wonder if Mills really wants to be governor. She gives me the impression that she’s not really all that interested, and just cynically intends to do a blah blah blah job, get the hell out of office, and then possibly run for US Senate, God forbid.
just more wealth transfer from producers to BIPOC TRASH , Mills has a soft spot for the “Tongue and Groove Crowd “.
Tax funded racism is illegal.