Reorganization Planning Committee Meeting
23 January 2008
DRAFT Minutes
Present: Facilitator Bill Ferm, Vice-Chair Brian Hubbell
Bar Harbor: Paul Murphy, Bob Garland; Mount Desert: Jeff Smith
Tremont: Amy Murphy, Scott Grierson; Cranberry Isles: Ted Spurling, Barbara Meyers
Others in attendance: Rob Liebow, Rick Barter, Selena Dunbar, Brian Reilly, Kelley Sanborn, Gary Friedmann, Elsie Flemmings
Commencement of Meeting
Brian Hubbell called the meeting to order at 7:08 p.m.
Review of Draft Minutes from 28 November 2007 and 9 January 2008
MOVED by Bob Garland, seconded by Paul Murphy, and unanimously voted to approve the minutes of 28 November 2007 and 9 January 2008 as presented.
Status Report and Discussion of Legislative Action
Brian Hubbell said he has tried to keep everyone updated as best he can. At the last RPC meeting, the sub-group was headed to Augusta the next day.
Paul Murphy said that he, Brian Hubbell, Gail Marshall, and Rob Liebow met in Hannah Pingree’s office for 1 ½ hours with the Commissioner and Peter Mills. Mills is a member of the education committee and supporter of consolidation, but expressed an interest in our plan and seeing where there might be a compromise. Ted Koffmann and Senator Dennis Damon were also there. The Commissioner expressed her understanding of what had transpired last spring. We clearly stated that we had a different understanding than she did. They talked about how consolidation would affect our district. Mills saw MDI as “low hanging fruit,” that we might be the easiest to fix, and by fixing us they might be able to apply our model statewide. They went through in detail how our district operates and how we want to continue in the way we do now. The group also explained how the negative impact of the law was impacting our school system. Mills was very complimentary of our system and understood that we are not the problem. Mills and the Commissioner both said that this law works exactly opposite for our system as what the law intended. Mills’ basic problem was that any board that had the power to zero fund its school, is a school union. Would have to have a fiduciary relationship with state. That in turn makes it a school union. He thought this was a fundamental problem. They gave us the ability to raise extra local in the community. The group furthered the Commissioner and Mr. Mills’ understanding of our plight. Brian, Rob and Gail went on to testify in front of the education committee.
Brian Hubbell – Mills was quite proud that he had read our plan and understood what we were proposing to do. He wanted to find a way to twist our plan into the vision the state had. The fundamental difference is in authority. We hit that wall and parted amicably. We were a little surprised to find ourselves testifying in front of the education committee.
Mills’ model didn’t go anywhere in regard to negotiations with us. Senator Mitchell was interested enough to have another model drawn up. Rob met with Jim Rier, finance director at the state.
Paul Murphy – What has happened since then, is LD 1932 which is the “fix” coming from the Department of Education to fix the fundamental problems, has passed the committee by a 10 – 3 vote. It does make some changes, but nothing that fixes us.
An amendment is going to be proposed by Senator Damon on the floor of the senate.
Rob Liebow – The amendment allows for Regional School Unions instead of a Regional School Unit. The concept draft of Chapter 108, Regional School Units was handed out and presented on the video screen. Mr. Liebow reviewed the proposed document with the committee. Please see attached for complete wording.
1. Formation – A regional school union may be formed pursuant to a reorganization plan or by vote of the legislative bodies of the member municipalities.
2. Regional school union committee – No change. Would seem cleaner and maybe not require new elections. One person one vote principal. 1000 votes, but the new wording in LD 1932 deleted the 2% rule. Number of voices at the table would be more balanced. Maybe five members per town, except for the islands which would more likely be about three. Power is still distributed the same.
3. Core functions
A. Employment of Superintendent
B. Performance of business functions
C. Special education administration
D. Transportation
E. Core curriculum
F. Budget
G. Reporting
H. Employment
I. School Calendar
J. Adoption of Policies
In Mills’ amendment, or how LD 1932 is going now, it defines the core responsibilities of the government and then anything else becomes the local control. Here are the core duties that the regional school union will be responsible for and then here is what the local committee will do. The administration will be central, but your own school will still be your own.
Transportation and the administration of transportation – it’s the oversight of that operation in that school. Put that in the Superintendent’s position. He/she could hold meetings throughout the year with all the transportation personnel. It would not be the union board deciding if and when you buy buses.
Core Curriculum – We have a core curriculum for Union 98. The learning results are state law so that is no different than the way we operate now.
Budget – Preparation of the regional school union budget.
Employment – RSU shall be the employer for all employees performing the core functions. Union employs the superintendent, IT manager, curriculum director, special education director, it’s the employer of the core functions and any additional functions delegated to the RSU and shall be responsible for negotiating and administering common collective bargaining agreements for school employees.
The way I read that, you still have those folks who aren’t in the union office as your employee but you’re obligated to have a collective bargaining agreement that is common. That’s what we have right now. We have a common contract with our teachers. Islands have tried to mirror these contracts and benefits as much as possible.
School calendar – We currently establish a common school calendar with slight variations for the outer-island schools. This would remain the same.
Adoption of policies – We already adopt policies that are the same but variations for individual schools are allowed.
Delegation of additional functions – You can give more to the central government but you don’t have to do that.
Budget Adoption – If Tremont wants to raise its own budget for K-8 they can do that.
Title to Property – We could transfer ownership of the school buildings to the Union, or not.
Reorganization planning – The state doesn’t want more than 80 “structures” in the state and 80 superintendents. The way we want to reorganize doesn’t take money away from kids in the classroom. Other than that it would be the same as our present school union.
Brian Hubbell – It is not by coincidence that this amendment mirrors what is in our plan.
Rob Liebow – Originally Libby Mitchell’s plan and then Senator Damon took it to present based on his constituents who have been advocating for this.
Brian Hubbell – The amendment has general support from senators of rural areas across the state.
Jeff Smith – Would there be any reason for the southern part of the state to oppose this?
Paul Murphy – If you read the editorials on the website, specifically from Bancroft, their objection is that unions are inefficient. Every study that has been done of education in Maine says we should abolish school unions. There has been lots of editorial and political rhetoric about it but he doesn’t know of any scholastic studies that show this. Inefficiency in school systems doesn’t seem to be tied to governance. The perception is often fact and he would say there is some sentiment that agrees with that.
Brian Hubbell – There is some ideological objection to the de-centralized model we have.
Jeff Smith – We have maintained right along that what will delete us is apathy. Patrick Smallidge came back from a Maine Municipal meeting and he said that the southern part of the state doesn’t care. The resistance is that they see us as whiny kids who won’t comply.
Paul Murphy – MDI and it’s plan and school system is held in pretty high regard in the state by Peter Mills and others. It is clear that we are on their radar screen, not because we’re whiny, just that our school system works already. You make a good point in that the large population centers don’t care because this law doesn’t affect them much. Repeal isn’t going to happen because there is no critical mass from population centers. There is a wide perception that in rhetoric we have seen in emails between legislators, that if they don’t fix some of these places, it’s going to be bedlam. I think there is enough support to do something that fixes us, which fixes a lot of other places.
Brian Hubbell – We see it the same way. It fits our model.
Jeff Smith – When might legislature determine this is a good alternative and go ahead and do it?
Brian Hubbell – LD 1932 will be emergency legislation.
Rob Liebow – It would be effective immediately once the governor signs it.
Brian Hubbell – All across the state RPC’s have stopped work so there is real impetus to enact this law. Assuming that this becomes part of it we would be back in business.
Jeff Smith – Is there any chance the Governor will veto it?
Brian Hubbell – It requires a 2/3 vote to pass, the same as a veto-override. He hasn’t heard that he would veto it.
Paul Murphy – The Governor needs this fixed more than we do. We are told that upon having this language read to her the Commissioner was not pleased.
Brian Hubbell – There is lots of drama as to how they will respond. He read an interesting blog today from the executive publisher of the Kennebec Journal who talked informally with some legislators. They said informally that because the Governor doesn’t have any further political aspirations, people aren’t so worried about opposing this.
Scott Grierson – He finds this very encouraging. He still thinks it’s a power grab and doesn’t think the ones behind it are going to go with it. Time will tell.
Brian Hubbell agreed that it will be interesting to see what will happen.
Paul Murphy – There is a lot of back-room arm twisting going on right now. This will be a tough pill for them to swallow. On the other hand, they need to fix it. There is a strong leadership in the Governor’s own party that wants to fix this. Republicans are going to be the easy ones to convince on this, democrats may be more difficult. We have strong leadership in the house majority and Dennis Damon is a senior senator who wields a lot of influence in the senate. This wouldn’t override the RSU structure, it would just allow for an additional structure.
Brian Hubbell – We understand that this will solve a lot of difficulties for schools across the state. We run the danger right now, I think it’s understood, as ours, in many respects, so if legislators in other areas conclude that that is all there is going on then we risk some support. However, there is a general understanding across the state that there are real problems with the law.
Barbara Meyers – How well do you think this fixes problems for more remote areas?
Brian Hubbell – It gives individual schools systems a lot more latitude in how they operate. People are looking at this differently. In Aroostook, many small units are trying to relax the upper size limits so they can operate basically as local RSU’s whereas, if they were able to operate as their existing school systems in some larger framework it might make things work better for them at a larger size.
Rob Liebow – There is still a huge stumbling block since collective bargaining agreements are still a problem for others.
Paul Murphy – It doesn’t fix those that are bound and determined to stay independent and not cooperate. There is not a lot of sympathy for those units. The ones that don’t coordinate curriculum, have their own busses and don’t allow central administration of it, those folks that still want a superintendent for 200 kids, it’s not going to fix them. That’s who people are referring to when they say unions are not efficient.
Bob Garland – He is surprised that other districts around the state haven’t come to us and said that since we have accomplished 75 % of what is required could they see our plan. Why hasn’t anyone come to us?
Paul Murphy – This is interesting. Look at the history of MDI consolidating, even s far back as when the consolidation of 7-12 was first recommended from a study in 1949. The same issues that are contentious today were then, too. What happened is that no one forced them to do it. It was very clear and it made sense. There needed to be better opportunities for kids at the high school level.
Rob Liebow – A lot of school unions don’t have a consolidated high school. Without the same curriculum, kids would come to high school without the same things. Ours is different because it already has the high school consolidated. Then you shared in the high school and it all started lining up. We have a pretty unique structure.
MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Bob Garland and unanimously voted to support the amendment pending its final language and outcome.
Plans for Public Hearing Tentatively Scheduled for February 5
Brian Hubbell doesn’t think there will be an Education Committee public hearing on the 5th. He said the senate does take up LD 1392 tomorrow, but what does the committee think our future plans should be?
Paul Murphy – Wait and see. If the amendment doesn’t get attached we will need a well attended meeting to think and talk long and hard on where we go from there. At that point it may be time to start talking about not complying.
Brian Hubbell – Let’s say it passes without the amendment. Our position might be to consult with our lawyer and provide a response by the February 1 deadline. We would then meet again to decide what our course would be.
If approved, we would talk to our lawyer about reconciling the wording in our plan with this amendment. We are still faced with determining what to do by February 1. We would then move on to talking about the cost-sharing formula. We don’t have enough information at this point to decide what to do.
Paul Murphy – Hasn’t the February 1 date been softened?
Brian Hubbell – Somehow through dispensation of the education committee the Department of Education decided that we have until March 28 to submit a plan. There is not a high probability of it, but if we find ourselves on the wrong end of the law, we might want to create a response to submit by February 1. We are not working on the governance issue right now pending what happens in the legislature. We have met the geographical aspects and there are other aspects that we have met. Thinks it would be a good idea to send interim communication so we meet deadline.
If so, this meeting is not the time to work on that but Brian will work on a draft to circulate and then decide if we want to send it.
Paul Murphy – He has mixed feelings about communicating with the state. Our plan has been rejected. Date to respond has been softened. We may want to wait and rescind our plan, and say we’re going on without you. We are in receipt of your rejection letter and our committee is delaying action pending action in the legislature.
Brian Hubbell – The first chance for penalty is November of this year if we don’t have a vote by that time. There is no possibility of any penalty before that.
Jeff Smith – Keep the response pithy. Terse. He would say RPC is not having any further action until the legislature is done.
Paul Murphy – We made it very clear that the RPC had voted that our plan was our plan and we weren’t inclined to uncross t’s and undot i’s on it and that not playing was a very real possibility.
Brian Hubbell – He wanted to thank the committee for putting us in that position.
Elsie Flemmings– Do you know what senators might be on the fence?
Brian Hubbell – He doesn’t know for sure, but thinks the ones who could use a nudge are from York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, and some others. Democrats in particular.
If you know people who are sympathetic in those areas it wouldn’t take too many people to influence them.
Paul Murphy tried to feel Hannah out in an email to see where the strength and weaknesses were. She was more confident about the senate than the house.
Brian Hubbell thinks the house is waiting to see what happens in the senate.
Next meeting set for Wednesday, 6 February 2008 at 7:00 pm, MDIHS Library. 6
Adjournment
MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Bob Garland, and unanimously voted to adjourn the meeting at 7:56 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Selena Dunbar,
Recording Secretary