be an advocate for maine cooperatives

Show Your Support for LD 1520

What Is LD 1520?

LD 1520 is an act to create and sustain jobs and affordable housing in Maine through the development of cooperatives and employee-owned businesses.

This bill will incentivize the sale of Maine businesses, farms, mobile home parks and rental properties to cooperative or employee-owned enterprises, and expand education, training and technical assistance for business owners and their workers interested in transitioning to employee ownership.

Maine has over 32,000 small businesses with employees, representing half of the jobs in the state. Research shows 79% of business owners want to retire within 10 years and 60% want to retire within 5 years, yet fewer than 15% have a documented exit plan. The smaller and more rural the business, the more likely the business will be liquidated and closed when an owner wants to retire.

Employee ownership can help stem Maine’s “brain drain” and attract and retain more Maine workers. Research shows that young workers in employee owned companies were in a much better financial situation, with 33% higher wages, 92% higher household wealth, and 53% higher job tenure.

This bill to preserve local ownership and control of businesses, farms and affordable housing has already been passed unanimously by the Maine house and senate, but we need to make sure it is prioritized and funded by the Appropriations Committee. Some of our cooperators are working directly with lawmakers to make this happen. It’s up to the rest of our co-op community to validate their efforts and support their work.

Here are some resources for additional information:

• LD 1520 Ownership Economy Fact Sheet (Cooperative Maine Business Alliance)

• Owning Maine’s Future 2019 Report (Cooperative Development Institute)

• Commentary: Make it easier for Maine workers to build wealth through ownership (Portland Press Herald)

What Can I do to help?

If you already emailed your local senators and representatives last year, you can simply resend that email. If not, you can use the sample letter below and insert a couple of personalized sentences. If you want to add resources to support your email, you can include links to the following articles on employee and housing cooperatives:  W. J. Wheeler Conversion and Charter Oaks Village, a Manufactured Home Community go Co-op. 

The following Appropriations Committee members are of key targets in your region:

• 1st Priority - Committee Co-Chair, Senator Cathy Breen:  Cathy.Breen@legislature.maine.gov  

• 1st Priority - Committee Co-Chair, Representative Andrew Gattine:  Andrew.Gattine@legislature.maine.gov 

• Representative Erik Jorgensen:  Erik.Jorgensen@legislature.maine.gov 

It’s also important to show the Speaker of the House, Sara Gideon, strong community support for this bill. Please send your email to her as well.

• Speaker of the House Sara Gideon: Sara.Gideon@legislature.maine.gov (207) 287-1300

It is imperative for as many people in our area as possible, who believe in this bill, to contact all 4 of the above legislators as well as the Speaker of the House via email in the next few weeks. If you chose to call and leave a message, please state your name, what district you are from and that you want to see LD1520 funded.

Thank you for your support in creating a stronger, more cooperative Maine!

sample email

[START COPY]

Dear Senator / Representative,

I’m writing to ask you to help us get LD 1520, An Act to Create and Sustain Jobs through Development of Cooperatives and Employee-owned Businesses, into the Supplemental Budget. This bill received unanimous support in the taxation committee, the house and the senate. It is not often that innovative ideas to strengthen our economy and create jobs have so much bipartisan support.

In my region…

[add a couple personalized sentences about whichever element of the law is most important to you – transitioning businesses to employee ownership, transitioning mobile home parks or apartment buildings to resident ownership, or transitioning farm businesses to cooperative ownership, e.g.:

“in my region, most of the business owners are older and don’t have a plan for how to exit their business and retire in a way that would guarantee the business and jobs stay viable.  Many business owners think they’ll have to close the business when they want to retire and that would hurt our economy and communities. Incentivizing the sale of the business to the employees and providing some education and training to help make that possible would preserve many otherwise viable businesses that we rely on.”

“in my region, farmers a getting old and young farmers can’t afford to buy land.  The financial pressure to close the farm and build a housing subdivision is huge. This is making it even harder for young farmers to get established and threatening Maine’s growing local food system.”]

This bill will incentivize the sale of businesses, farms and affordable housing to workers, farmers and residents and provide technical assistance for those sales. For a small investment, this bill will leverage tens of millions of dollars in private investment and help thousands of Mainers build wealth through ownership.

Please get behind LD1520 and make sure it gets funded ASAP. 

Thank you!

[END COPY]