State Sen. Matthew Harrington (R) is demanding immediate transparency from Gov. Janet Mills (D) after what he describes as a troubling pattern of unchecked no-bid contracts, shifting paperwork standards, and weakened oversight within Maine’s procurement system.
In a detailed letter sent Monday, Harrington, the assistant minority leader representing the York County municipalities of Sanford, Lebanon, Waterboro and Alfred, said constituents across Senate District 33 have been raising alarms for months about the volume and nature of contracts awarded without competitive bidding under the Mills Administration.
Harrington said the latest concern involves a quiet but significant change to the state’s no-bid contract cover page, which he described as a “troubling” revision that removes language requiring a governor’s designee to certify an emergency before bypassing competitive bidding requirements.
According to Harrington, the altered form, renamed from the “State of Maine Waiver of Competitive Bidding Request Form” to the “State of Maine Procurement Justification Form”, appears to have been introduced in early 2020. He is asking the governor to disclose who authorized the change, when it was approved and why key accountability language was removed.
Harrington also pointed to several publicly reported contracts that have inflamed frustration among taxpayers, including $23,500 from the Maine Department of Education for a “happiness expert,” $120,000 paid to the Portland Press Herald and Lewiston Sun Journal for state-sponsored articles praising the administration’s education spending, and $800,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services to house a non-citizen at an Oakland residential care facility beginning in 2022.
He said these examples reflect a growing perception that the Mills Administration is spending public money on politically aligned media messaging, niche consulting, and high-cost social programs, all without the transparency built into competitive bidding.
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Harrington underscored his concerns by citing a report from the Office of the State Auditor, which found widespread deficiencies across the state’s procurement system. In fiscal year 2024 alone, Maine issued more than $2.1 billion in contracts under a structure auditors said lacked “basic supervisory oversight and controls,” Auditor Matt Dunlap found earlier this year.
Of 31 sole-source contracts reviewed, more than half lacked required documentation showing that alternatives were reasonably investigated.
Harrington is demanding that Mills disclose a full, updated list of all no-bid contracts issued under her administration and release the corresponding justification forms for each one. If the administration cannot produce such a list, he asked for an explanation.
He warned that the pattern of non-competitive spending, spanning media outreach, climate and social-policy initiatives, and public-health expenditures, suggests a “very liberal interpretation” of when no-bid contracting is appropriate.
“The result has been some extremely troubling, perhaps even egregious, examples of taxpayer funds being spent without competition, transparency, or accountability,” Harrington wrote.
He urged the governor to treat the matter with urgency and emphasized that transparency in the use of public dollars is “not an option, it is a duty.” Harrington also requested immediate confirmation that her office received his letter.
