Does Baxter State Park have to get state procurement approval before making purchases, like other Maine state agencies?

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1988. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Plain-English summary

This internal Department of the Attorney General memo responded to a question from the Bureau of Public Improvements (BPI) about whether Baxter State Park needed BPI's approval for its purchases, after the Park's Director asked for confirmation that it did not. Assistant Attorney General William R. Stokes recalled discussing the same question years earlier in connection with the Park's purchase of a truck and whether that purchase needed to go through the state's Bureau of Purchases.

Stokes concluded that Baxter State Park was not subject to BPI or Bureau of Purchases approval, reasoning that the Park was created by gifts and deeds of trust from Governor Percival Baxter and was meant to be managed by an independent Authority under Baxter's own instructions, funded from its own trust account. On that basis, the memo concluded the Baxter State Park Authority was not a "department or agency of the State" in the sense that term is used for BPI and Bureau of Purchases approval purposes, and that requiring the Park to go through those bureaucratic channels would be inconsistent with the Authority's intended independence from the Executive Department of state government.

Background and analysis (as of 1988)

The memo traced its conclusion to Baxter State Park's unusual origin: rather than being established as an ordinary executive branch agency, the Park was created through Governor Baxter's personal deeds of trust, which set up an independent Authority to manage the Park using its own dedicated trust funding rather than money appropriated to a typical state department. Because that structure was intended to keep Park operations independent of ordinary executive branch bureaucracy, the memo reasoned it would not make sense to subject the Authority's purchasing decisions to the same BPI and Bureau of Purchases review applied to standard state departments and agencies.

Citations and references

No statutes or cases were cited in this memo; its conclusion rests on the terms of Governor Baxter's deeds of trust establishing the Baxter State Park Authority, as understood and previously discussed among Assistant Attorneys General handling the matter.

Source

• Landing page: https://www.maine.gov/legis/lawlib/lldl/agops/agops.htm
• Original PDF: https://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/AG/Opinions/1988/ag_19880412.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain, the linked PDF is authoritative.

MAINE STATE LEGISLATURE

The following document is provided by the
LAW AND LEGISLATIVE DIGITAL LIBRARY
at the Maine State Law and Legislative Reference Library
http://legislature.maine.gov/lawlib

Reproduced from scanned originals with text recognition applied
(searchable text may contain some errors and/or omissions)

Department of Attorney General

MEMORANDUM

To: Francis Ackerman, Assistant Attorney General
From: William R. Stokes, Assistant Attorney General
Date: April 12, 1988
Subject: Baxter State Park - Bureau of Public Improvements
Approval

This will acknowledge receipt of the March 29, 1988 memorandum to you from Dale Doughty, Director of the Bureau of Public Improvements asking for your advice with respect to a letter dated March 28, 1988 from Irvin (Buzz) Caverly, Director of the Baxter State Park, asking for confirmation that the Baxter State Park is not subject to BPI approval.

I have a very vivid recollection of discussing this subject with Paul Stern who represents the Baxter State Park, sometime ago and I am quite confident that it was our mutual opinion that the Baxter State Park should not and is not subject to BPI approval. I don't recollect that we ever put anything in writing concerning this but I know it came up and I know that I did discuss the matter with Paul and I believe with Carl Silsby of the Bureau of Purchases and, I believe with Rod Scribner who was the Commissioner of Finance and Administration at the time. My recollection is that it involved the purchase of a truck by the Baxter State Park and whether that purchase had to go through the Bureau of Purchases.

I believe Paul and I were both of the view that in view of the fact that the Baxter State Park was formed as a result of gifts made by Governor Baxter and since the Park was to be managed by an Authority established pursuant to the instructions of Governor Baxter, it would make absolutely no sense to apply BPI and Bureau of Purchases approval to the operation of the Park. Indeed, I do not believe that the Baxter State Park Authority is a department or agency of the State as that term is used in the context of BPI and Bureau of Purchases approval. I do agree with Buzz Caverly's assessment that it is an independent authority created by virtue of Governor Baxter's Deeds of Trust and funded from its own independent trust account and it was intended that the Authority make decisions regarding the operation of the Park without being subject to the bureaucratic requirements of the Executive Department of State Government.

I hope this information is helpful to you. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of further assistance.

WILLIAM R. STOKES
Assistant Attorney General

WRS/dm
cc: Paul Stern, Assistant Attorney General