AUGUSTA - The Maine House gave unanimous final approval Wednesday to legislation from Rep. Traci Gere, D-Kennebunkport, that would create better, more accessible measurements of economic and social progress.
LD 1476, Resolve, Directing the Maine Economic Growth Council To Create and Share Measures of Progress, would develop and publish clear benchmarks to make it easier for the public to see how Maine is doing across various economic and social indicators. The data would be accessible through a new online dashboard.
"I have always believed that you manage what you measure," said Gere. "When you plan to regularly assess, track and reflect on progress toward a goal, you are more likely to focus on that goal, and ultimately achieve it."
Gere's measure was submitted to create a tool for making sure that Maine's government is doing all it can to accomplish the goals set forth in Maine's 10-Year Strategic Plan and Maine's Economic Recovery Plan. The new dashboard would facilitate communication between the legislative branch, the executive branch and the public and allow Maine to react more quickly and flexibly to setbacks or changing conditions.
"Government needs to be accountable," said Gere. "If we're going to spend public dollars to achieve something, we need to be able to clearly illustrate how it's going and shift approaches in response to what were learning. I'm grateful this is a principle that my colleagues support."
Gere says her legislation would help take a larger goal and break it down into more achievable pieces, citing the examples of growing the workforce and increasing access to child care.
"Within the larger strategic goal of bringing in 75,000 new workers to Maine is a smaller-scale goal to make Maine attractive to discharged military families," said Gere. "Within the larger strategic goal of increasing Maine's child care capacity is specially tracking improvements in child care infrastructure in the most underserved areas. In both cases, these individual components are easier to track and to use to demonstrate progress toward broader goals."
The measure now goes to the Senate for additional consideration.
Gere, a member of the Labor and Housing Committee, is serving her first term in the Maine House and represents Kennebunkport and parts of Biddeford and Kennebunk.
Contact:
Jackie Merrill [Gere], c. 812-1111