The curtailment order for all state entities totaled more than $63 million dollars. The system’s cut of $5.97 million is the third-largest, representing 3.38 percent of its state appropriation.

Public education took the largest curtailment order of $38.1 million, and the Department of Health and Human Services received the second-largest cut of $11.15 million, representing 1.35 percent of its state appropriation.

The system was expecting a curtailment order of $7.5 million, according to Rebecca Wyke, vice chancellor for finance and administration. The smaller curtailment order is intended to reduce the impact on the system’s three smallest campuses and reduce the number of class sections eliminated, Wyke said.

“We were notified in mid-October that we would have a likely reduction of approximately $7.5 million. The governor’s announcement of his curtailment today actually reduces that to just under $6 million,” Wyke said.

The individual schools won’t know exact numbers for a few days, but UMaine spokesperson Joe Carr said the university would not cut any personnel because of the curtailment.

“We’ll do things like reduce capital projects and cut in other non-personnel areas,” Carr said.

The expected curtailment could have meant the University of Maine at Machias would have to cut its campus security, but a UMM spokesperson Erik Smith said Friday that was no longer the case.

The system received $174.9 million in fiscal year 2001, according to Wyke. This year’s initial appropriation was $176.4 million, which has since been reduced to $170.5 million.

“It has been fluctuating quite a bit over the past years,” Wyke said.

Loredo, who headed UVote, multicultural services, judicial affairs and GLBT Services, among other programs, joined the UMaine community as associate dean in June 1999. He previously served as director of multicultural services at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. His responsibilities will be absorbed by Dana and Senior Associate Dean of Students Kenda Scheele.

The decision to cut the position was made by Dana, in consultation with several other people who Dana declined to identify.

“We’ve cut 25 percent of the budget in the last four-plus years, and I had cut 12 positions leading up to this,” Dana said Friday afternoon. Most of the positions that have been cut so far were characterized by Dana as “front-line” positions, but Dana said he had cut those positions as much as he could afford.

“To provide excellent service to students, I cannot cut on the front lines,” Dana said. Previous cuts have affected campus recreation, campus activities and administrative support, but Dana said the cuts have not dramatically impacted students.

“Student Affairs personnel are willing to do what needs to be done to help people,” Dana said.

Dana told Loredo of the decision on Tuesday.

Loredo would like to stay in the academic arena, but was unable to comment on whether he would be able to stay at UMaine due to contractual limitations.

“My passion has always been working with students,” Loredo said.

Scheele called the cut “a horrible thing,” but said budget cuts dictated the action.

“At the end of the day, we have to make the money work,” Scheele said.

Zachary Knox, president of Wilde Stein, UMaine’s GLBT alliance, said Loredo would be “sincerely missed.” Knox said Loredo was the community’s “source of influence and support” in the administration.

Scheele said Student Affairs has suffered other personnel cuts in recent years, including losing an administrative assistant last year. The elimination of an associate dean position is the biggest cut of a single job UMaine has seen since the recession began.

Dana said the university compensates for position cuts by allocating additional jobs to other people. He said when he first joined the university, there was a vice president for student affairs, a dean of students and three associate deans. With the elimination of Loredo’s job, just Dana, as vice president and dean, and Scheele, as associate dean, remain.

“We haven’t been unfairly treated; we’ve been proportionally treated,” Dana said. He expects $200,000 of Student Affairs’ $2.9 million budget to be cut next year.

Public Safety will come under the purview of Student Affairs, effective Jan. 1. The department was previously under the direction of Vice President for Administration and Finance Janet Waldron, according to Dana.

Loredo’s salary and benefits totaled just under $101,000 last year, according to MaineOpenGov.org.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Yes on 1 had 52.81 percent of the vote and No on 1 had 47.19 percent.

Yes on 1 declared victory shortly after midnight, when it became apparent No on 1 could not overtake its lead.

“What the people of Maine had to say is that marriage matters and that it’s between a man and a woman,” said Marc Mutty, chairman of Stand for Marriage Maine, in a speech.

“It has been the little guy against the big guy in terms of resources — human resources, financial resources — and we prevailed because the people of Maine, the silent majority, the folks back home, spoke with their vote tonight,” Mutty said.

Yes on 1 gathered at the Eastland Park Hotel in Portland and at Jeff’s Catering in Brewer; supporters of No on 1 gathered at the Holiday Inn in Portland. While a few dozen supporters attended the Yes on 1 party in Portland, several hundred attended the No on 1 party, which featured a live band and a disc jockey later in the night. Some supporters danced and drank, while others watched a live feed of the results in front of two large screens.

The Yes on 1 parties were linked by live video feeds, and the two locations competed several times to see who could chant “Yes on 1” the loudest.

Early results showed No on 1 in the lead by a wide margin, but as the night wore on and rural precincts started to report results, No on 1’s lead shrank steadily. Shortly before 10:30 p.m., Yes on 1 took the lead for the first time, to cheers from its supporters.

The No on 1 campaign did not concede immediately. Mark Sullivan, spokesperson for Protect Maine Equality, said shortly after midnight the campaign intended to continue to count the vote well into the day.

But around 2 a.m., No on 1 seemed to concede. In a statement on No on 1’s Web site, Jesse Connolly, campaign manager for Protect Maine Equality, thanked supporters and vowed to continue the fight for same-sex marriage.

“We’re in this for the long haul,” the statement said. “For next week, and next month, and next year — until all Maine families are treated equally. Because in the end, this has always been about love and family and that will always be something worth fighting for.”

Reverend Bob Emrich said in Yes on 1’s victory speech that the campaign was never about hating gay couples.

“There are some bridges that need to be built, some fences that need to be mended. We need to reach out to some people who may very well have been doing what they believed in. We disagreed with them very strongly, obviously, but we need to reach out to them,” Emrich said.

“The institution of marriage has been preserved in Maine and across this nation,” said Frank Shubert, Yes on 1’s campaign manager.

Schubert said polls had Yes on 1 up by about 6 percent going into Election Day, so he was confident throughout the day, even as early returns had No on 1 up.

Scott Fish, communications director for Stand for Marriage Maine, said Question 1 passed because voters got away from the spin and realized what was in the bill.

“I think they saw that whatever inequities there are in domestic partnerships — gay or straight — that they realized that these can be dealt with through lawmaking, that we don’t have to redefine marriage to do that, and when they realized that the pending bill would have redefined marriage they didn’t like it,” Fish said.

Supporters of Question 1 said they had no immediate plans for the future. Schubert said he did not think same-sex marriage was likely to come up again in the future.

“I think the other side will try and push it, but I don’t think the legislature or the governor is going to turn their back on what the people have decided,” Schubert said.

Maine was the 31st state to vote down same-sex marriage at polls; no states have approved gay marriage by popular vote.

Maine and Rhode Island are now the only states in New England where same-sex marriage is not legal. New Hampshire is set to start marrying same-sex couples in January.

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Dylan Riley contributed to this report.

Payson was stopped around 1:45 a.m. on Sunday, July 26, on Route 3, according to Sharon Worcester, the dispatch supervisor for the Bar Harbor Police Department. Payson posted bail of $40 directly from the police department and spent no time in jail. Both Payson and Diamond were summonsed to appear in Ellsworth District Court on Sept. 8 at 1 p.m., where they will be arraigned and enter their pleas.

Payson was driving erratically and tailgating but was not speeding, according to Adam Vanwhy, a dispatcher for the Bar Harbor Police Department.

Following the charges, Payson has been suspended indefinitely from the team, according to university spokesperson Joe Carr. “There’s a standard practice that the Athletic Director follows when an athlete is charged with a crime,” Carr said.

Diamond has not been suspended, since he is not actually a student of the university yet. He will go before the athletic director later this week. “Technically he hasn’t signed the code of conduct,” Carr said, though he added Diamond is still reponsible.

Payson will meet with Athletic Director Blake James and discuss the future of his hockey career at the university later this week.

Payson was charged with aggravated assault in January 2008 but the state decided not to pursue the complaint, according to a clerk at the Penobscot County Court. He was indefinitely suspended from the team until the charges were dropped. The forward was a redshirt freshman this past year, and played in 17 games for the Black Bears.  Before coming to UMaine, he played for the Portland Junior Pirates for two seasons. A native of Veazie, he played his first three seasons at Bangor High School where he starred for current UMaine Assistant Coach Dan Kerluke. He was also a standout football player at Bangor.

Diamond is a native of Long Beach, N.Y. and a forward.

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Adam Clark contributed to this report.

Hoff, who has been a professor at UMaine for 12 years, said she wants to pursue an administrative role at the university level, but has not been able to find the right opportunity at UMaine. She said a lack of department chairs in the College of Education, which can springboard into administrative positions, was a roadblock to her desire to get hired to such a job.

“My area is leadership and I have been interested in moving into an administrative position at UMaine, but the right opportunity wasn’t presenting itself … and I felt I should explore other options,” Hoff said.

Judy Kuhns-Hastings will replace Hoff as president of Faculty Senate. According to Hoff, her term was going to end in 2009 and her departure hasn’t changed who was going to replace her and when.

The new president will have her own voice, said Vice President of Student Affairs Robert Dana, who believes Hoff will keep in touch with Kuhns-Hastings and UMaine.

“It’ll have an impact,” Dana said, “Doctor Hoff brought a real energy to UMaine.”

The College of Education and Human Development does not have department chairs because of the nature of its departments, said Dean Anne Pooler. She said Hoff is particularly good at helping doctoral students and works very hard. Pooler added the college is currently seeking to restructure itself and possibly implement department chairs, but currently some departments have as few as three professors and therefore have no need of a chair.

“Most of the colleges in the university have department chairs. That kind of a role gets a person really good at administrative experience, Hoff said. “Our college does not have department chairs, and so when there have been job opportunities, the criteria for the job might say, ‘Well you might have at least been a department chair.’ One of the problems was not only did I not see anything that looked like it was going to happen here, but I was not gaining the kind of experience that I needed to stay competitive in job searches in the future.”

Hoff requested leave from UMaine in the hopes of gaining the experience she needed and returning in a year, but her request was turned down – likely because of financial reasons, according to Hoff. She also suggested unpaid leave, partial retirement and a visiting professor status as alternatives, but those were similarly turned down.

“I was disappointed, I won’t lie about that,” Hoff said. “A year from now I thought things might change around at UMaine, or just that maybe I would want to come back here and contribute in some way.”

Hoff said her advisees will transition to a new advisor and that she will continue to give course advice. Pooler said she is unsure whether Hoff will be replaced in the college.

Hoff was previously an elementary school principal in California and has lived in Georgia in the past. She said she is excited to return but is sorry to leave UMaine.

“Her students will miss her, but I know that she’ll be in a position to finish up with her current graduate students,” Dana said. “She loves the University of Maine so it’s bittersweet, I would call it.”

Hoff was awarded the 2008-09 Outstanding Teacher Award in the spring of 2009 for her work at the university. She said she will continue to offer advice to Hastings and finish up her work with doctoral students and her research, as well as return every summer to teach an education law course.