LePage's $1M Consultant awarded "Temporary Aid FROM Needy Families"

Most of the money for the contract comes from the state’s general fund or special revenue funds, but $193,680 of the funding is federal money, including $69,120 that is being diverted from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

A typo in the contract identifies the funding as “Temporary Assistance fromNeedy Families.”

Rep. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, co-chairman of the Legislature’s budget-writing Appropriations Committee, roundly criticized the funding source Friday.

“That money, as I understand it, was provided to help children who are in poverty,” Rotundo said. “So they are literally taking food out of the mouths of children, taking money that is intended to feed hungry poor children in order to funnel that money to a political crony of the governor’s.”