The Maine Department of Education (Maine DOE) entered into a “partnership” with the nonprofit Maine Trust for Local News in order to develop a marketing campaign meant to generate “goodwill” among Maine voters towards the state’s public school system, emails obtained by the Maine Wire reveal.
In September, the Maine Wire reported that the Mills administration disclosed a $117,300 no-bid contract with the Maine Trust for Local News, owner of the Portland Press Herald and more than a dozen other news publications across the state, for a marketing campaign with the Maine DOE.
As outlined in the contract document, the “marketing campaign” includes the publication and promotion of six sponsored articles written by the Maine DOE in the nonprofit’s various news outlets that are meant to portray the state’s public schools in a positive light.
“This campaign will utilize the authority of Maine Trust for Local News, which carries with the DOE’s constituents, to achieve these goals, resulting in an increase of goodwill for Maine’s public school system,” the Mills administration wrote in a procurement form.
Now, emails obtained by the Maine Wire via the Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) shed new light on the process by which staff at the Maine DOE and Maine Trust for Local News entered what they described as a “partnership” to develop the marketing campaign and the details of their contract.
Staff at the Maine DOE were discussing the potential marketing campaign with the nonprofit starting in late July.
Kendra Carter, Education Marketing Specialist at the Maine DOE, emailed the departments Director of Communications Marcus Mrowka to inform him of the potential campaign on July 24.
Carter then has a series of emails with Joanne Alfiero, Media sales Consultant at the Maine Trust for Local News, in which the two worked together to develop a customized plan and schedule for the marketing campaign.
In one July 25 email to Alfiero, Carter admitted that the target audience for the taxpayer-funded marketing campaign specifically includes Maine voters.
At several points in the email chain, both Maine Trust for Local News staff and Maine DOE staff refer to their work together on the campaign as a “partnership.”
Kendra Carter and Joanne Alfiero also exchanged text messages about the marketing campaign, and at one point even mentioned the Maine Wire’s reporting on their contract.
“Did you guys see the Maine Wire story?” Carter wrote to Alfiero on Tuesday, Sept. 24, the morning after the first Maine Wire report was published.
“No, I’m remote today and just going my day going [sic]. I’m logging into the paper now,” Alfiero replied.
The funds for the Mills administration’s $117,300 payment to the Maine Trust for Local News came from American Rescue Plan Act funds, a COVID-19 pandemic-era stimulus package signed into law by President Joe Biden in early 2021.
As outlined in the contract, the Maine Trust for Local News received nearly $50,000 in August, and will receive about $23,000 per month through November until the conclusion of the marketing campaign.
Carter, when emailing two female members of the Maine DOE’s procurement staff in August for assistance on editing contract documents related to the marketing campaign, referred to them as “Procurement Queens.”
The first of the six sponsored full-page articles, entitled “Maine educators share their excitement for the new school year,” was published in the Portland Press Herald in early September, and included a disclosure that the article was sponsored content provided by the Maine Department of Education.
According to the emails, the Maine Trust for Local News will be publishing a 20-page booklet with all six sponsored Maine DOE articles inserted in their outlets’ Thanksgiving issues, to be released during the week of Nov. 24.
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