Reorganization Planning Committee Meeting
6 February 2008
DRAFT Minutes
Present: Chair Gail Marshall, Vice-Chair Brian Hubbell
Bar Harbor: Paul Murphy, Bob Garland Mount Desert: Jeff Smith
Southwest Harbor: Kristin Hutchins Tremont: Amy Murphy
Others in attendance: Rob Liebow, Kelley Sanborn, Patrick Barter, Selena Dunbar,
Gary and Glennon Friedmann
Commencement of Meeting
Gail Marshall called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m.
Review of Draft Minutes from 23 January 2008
MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Jeff Smith, and unanimously voted to approve the minutes of 23 January 2008 as presented.
Update from Augusta
Gail Marshall – It became apparent that Libby Mitchell was interested in a school union proposal. It became a little unclear how that was all going to come about to us, but our preliminary idea was drafted by Dick Spencer. It became clear that we really needed a full school union alternative to the existing law and Senator Dennis Damon was willing to be the person to submit this as an amendment to LD 1932. That bill itself, that this would be attached to, still is not out of the reviser’s office for us to see in exact detail.
Brian Hubbell – The majority report is. Yes, it’s out. It was actually on the senate’s calendar today but it got tabled.
Gail Marshall – Once that does happen, then Dennis is going to be introducing our amendment. This is being called the Damon amendment. This amendment would allow a complete alternative to the regional school unit structure. So you could choose that, or you could choose this and develop your plan in accordance with either of those systems. This will allow for true school unions to still exist with required centralization of core functions as defined by law and they are very similar to what we have now.
Brian Hubbell – The RPC endorsed this amendment at our last meeting.
Gail Marshall – The Commissioner of Education and the Governor are absolutely opposed to this amendment. It has to go through a process of determining whether or not there is a fiscal implication to it. If they believe there is, they determine whether this will cost something. If they determine yes, that kills it outright. The Commissioner was attempting to argue to them that it should have multi-million dollar fiscal note attached to it. She argued that they have data that shows that per pupil costs of students in union systems are $1,500 higher than in SAD or other systems. Therefore, if this is allowed, the cost to the state would be 1,500 times an approximate number of pupils and that’s the annual cost and therefore you should kill this bill. One of the things we’re paying for is high quality legal representation and Dick Spencer participated in a conversation with people in that office and reviewed the analysis with them. We think we may have beaten back that request. She is claiming this was David Silvernail’s analysis. The analysis may show there is a difference in per pupil costs in the aggregate, but there is nothing that says why that is. Is it because unions tend to be in wealthier regions and they just spend more on their kids? Is it because they tend to be in smaller regions and the cost per pupil is higher because they run smaller schools? And that’s not going to be any different in an RSU system. Our position is that it is bogus to attach a fiscal note to this but there is an attempt being made to do this.
Kristin Hutchins – So we’re not arguing the figure, we’re just arguing the connection, or whether there is a connection. But nobody is contesting that figure, the $1,500.
Paul Murphy – No one is contesting the study that these figures were taken from. The argument was that there is nothing about this plan that intrinsically would cost $1,500 per pupil. There is no causal relationship there.
Kristin Hutchins – There is no correlation between unions and this figure.
Jeff Smith– And that is the position to take. There is no relationship. I remember when Dick McFalls was arguing that teachers were poorly paid here compared to Union 96. And that’s the average teacher salary. The average teacher in 96 was a very experienced teacher at the top of a low scale and the average teacher here at that point was in the middle of a high scale and so the argument made absolutely no sense to anybody. A further analysis would say that the SAD’s probably represent more rural, lower scale areas, and since salaries represent 80% of budget for education, give or take, that would make sense. As opposed to our scale which is reasonably high for our area. Not even addressing it is the way to do it. It doesn’t make any difference.
Paul Murphy – Gail’s point is right. It seems that Dick Spencer was able to relieve the people in the OFB office of whatever it is, that there ought to be this fiscal note. A couple things should be noted – this amendment has changed a little in that the requirement for a common contract and collective bargaining at the union level has been removed. Not only can local communities hire/fire, not only are they the employer for the teacher, they can also be the bargaining unit for teachers. We think this is an improvement to it. The other thing is when the fiscal note is attached to a bill like this, it goes to the appropriations committee and they decide if there is revenue to offset the fiscal note. And if it is decided there is not revenue, which there wouldn’t be in this case, it dies in committee and never gets to the floor of the legislature.
Brian Hubbell – If you listen to David Silvernail describe his data directly you can find examples of the whole range of costs represented within the union structure. When he explains it directly the only striking direct correlation he finds in per pupil expense is the valuation in the community. In other words, towns with more money tend to spend more on education.
Gail Marshall – Paul is right. And I would argue that he’s right about the collective bargaining changes. I wouldn’t necessarily argue at this point in time that that is a preferable option for us. You would have the option of negotiating union-wide. I don’t know whether we would want to take that option or not. It would be an interesting discussion for us to have. The problem it solves for many small schools is the contract disparity that they were going to be forced to confront right off the bat. This hopefully will allow many more rural legislators to feel comfortable about this bill. Three of us (RPC members, Gail, Paul and Brian) went down and met with the rural caucus with Dick Spencer and Hannah was there and Dennis was there and Dick sat before the rural caucus and explained this bill to them and this was before the changes were made. And he also explained it to them that there were certain operating assumptions that he had when he drafted it and some of them related to what he thought would be politically necessary to put in here that track language in the original bill, but it wasn’t language that we were necessarily wedded to. The collective bargaining piece was one of those. Within a day or two we got word from Libby Mitchell’s office that the request had been made to remove that language. Conversations took place in Augusta between representatives and members of the state MEA and then we got word that that had been removed. If it frees up a lot more legislators and their schools to vote for this, that’s what would be a very good thing. None of us attended the rural caucus yesterday. There is going to be a lot of politicking that takes place around this bill. It is believed, at least initially, that there was a really good head count for potential support for this, in the senate anyway. Hannah Pingree was at work with legislators in the house to gain broad based support. It is a bi-partisan issue. Urban democrats are a real sticking point for us. They need as much assistance as they can get and understanding that this is not a threat to the universe and it would be a fine alternative and would help make consolidation work. There are those school unions that might benefit from the sort of coordinated central office services that they don’t now have.
Brian Hubbell – We have done everything that we can. We put forward a particular, detailed plan. Don’t see what else we could have done, given the circumstances.
Gail Marshall – We need to advocate for it as best we can. There has been a little bit of pushback from various individuals in other schools, some of them in this county, who might argue at times that Mount Desert is trying to protect it’s own interest and this doesn’t really meet the needs of their schools. Some of those people tend to end their emails with “repeal, repeal, repeal.” We understand that would still be the best outcome for all of us.
There is a cost of doing business. Dick Spencer and Bruce Smith and their support staff spent three long days almost non-stop to create this document (the amendment). The bill for that is $17,000. A conversation was had with Dick Spencer yesterday in which we said we were at work with ways to pay for this. We felt at this point that we needed to cap the bill at $20,000. He is almost indispensable and has credibility in the legislature and works heavily with school finance. He’s doing a fine job for us.
Brian Hubbell – If he had been in the room with us in June we could have saved nine months of everybody’s time.
The RPC’s everywhere right now are dependent upon the Department of Education for any expenses at all. That’s a way of controlling the outcomes. It’s important for us to decide that it’s worthwhile to have our own resources in relation to accomplishing what we need to do rather than having all of our possibilities constricted by what the Department of Education will pay for.
Gail Marshall – Even though given the sad truth is that we will be successful if we’re allowed to maintain the status quo and we will have had to spend all that money to fight back against the state government. We’re happy to have someone suggest another way to approach this going forward.
Rob Liebow – Nancy Thurlow ran a spreadsheet of where legal expenses were to date. There was about a $20,000 balance ranging from about $100 dollars on Frenchboro to MDIHS which had the largest amount remaining - $4,800. Total is around $20,000. Barring any horrible situation between now and June we could commit $10,000 through the schools and still have enough to cover legal expenses that still may be out there that we don’t know about or things that might come up between now and June. That would leave us less than $10,000 to have to come up with through other sources.
Gail Marshall – Mt. Desert Elementary School has about $3,600. The initial impression was that they didn’t want to spend more than $1,500 because they might need that for legal needs. It isn’t that people didn’t want to support this, they’re just trying to be careful about other legal needs that might come up. We are going to have to leave something in the till. None of us can be foolish about draining our accounts. This is a ballpark from the Mt. Desert Elementary School budget. Rob and Gail met with the Mount Desert selectmen Monday night and the sense of the body was that they were willing to contribute. How the bill would be split between municipalities would be determined later. We’re talking about $10,000 across the island. Not including the outer islands in this and I don’t know what we want to do about that. $2,500 per 4 MDI towns. Simplest and cleanest way is to split it four ways. Don’t want to get into a funding formula fight about this.
Jeff Smith – Allocated the money in our (selectman’s) budget to do exactly this. Doesn’t think that $2,500 would be any obstacle for the town of Mount Desert.
Gail Marshall – We told him (Spencer) to stop at $20,000 and that doesn’t leave us a lot more legal services and we don’t have any other reserve in our school account to go beyond that. The other question is what sort of flexibility can we build into towns for further services we should get prior authorization for.
Paul Murphy – Mr. Spencer doesn’t foresee any more significant costs related to this matter.
Rob Liebow – Maybe $1,000 dollars worth of last minute clarifying type phone calls. However, if the Governor called Libby Mitchell to defend the amendment, Dick Spencer should be there and that would cost money.
Paul Murphy – The actual writing of the document takes up $14,000 of the $17,000 cost. Bar Harbor school board meeting was Monday. They are squarely behind this effort. Haven’t talked to the town council as a whole.
Bob Garland– It’s on the agenda.
Paul Murphy – We will have a formal discussion. Those folks we’ve heard from are generally supportive. Heard concern about the town funding lobbying.
Gail Marshall – Sent Dick Spencer an email about this concern. Doesn’t understand legal distinction and the concern. Is there any legal distinction or anything a town should be worried about in funding lobbying versus any other kind of legal services?
Brian Hubbell – Need to talk about resources we are going to commit to the RPC’s work. Don’t want to have to go back through this again. It would be helpful to get a commitment from each of our communities for a certain amount of support in the first place. The majority is going to legal expenses. Recognition that the committee needs financial support in a particular amount but doesn’t want to limit it to the expenses we have already incurred because we may find that the towns want us to continue with this process.
Gail Marshall – Likely to be more expenses and we need to be clear that towns feel $20,000 is limit? Or do we need more?
Paul Murphy – Resources – Understand that $17,000 bill is over and above work that was done heretofore for our RPC. This $17,000 is related to the amendment. Wouldn’t go throwing that $2,500 that is coming our way because our configuration was approved. As an RPC we are incurring legal expenses aside from this amendment and the funds that come from the state are going to need to be applied to those expenses.
Rob Liebow – There are a couple of different pools of money. One initial $2,500 for miscellaneous expenses, clerical workers, Swan’s Island being able to stay off the island. Then they gave authorization for $2,500 per SAU who is involved in a conglomerate discussion like this for legal work, not this kind of legal work since it’s working against the law, that would have been 5 or 6 of us times $2,500 for drafting our actual plan so that it can be submitted in a way that the Commissioner would accept it and that kind of thing. That kind of money is gone. This new $2,500 adds to that miscellaneous amount. It has no strings attached to it at all. You can spend however you want. Could put toward legal costs.
Gail Marshall – We will have more costs. Suppose the bill passes. We still have to design a plan and execute it legally.
Rob Liebow – That should be close to $20,000 and that will go quickly, too, of money available for that kind of work.
Brian Hubbell – That’s permitted already. Reimbursement from DOE.
Gail Marshall – On top of the $2,500?
Brian Hubbell – Supposedly.
Bob Garland – All this is telling me that the Department of Education expected at the outset that this original plan was so carefully crafted that it was going to go through without any bumps in the road that anybody would have to address that would cost money. Obviously that has not been the case.
Gail Marshall - Presume that maybe Falmouth and North Yarmouth have not incurred this kind of legal expense because they agreed to play along. Maybe that works for them.
Bob Garland – That is certainly not the case with the rest of the state. This is on the agenda for the Bar Harbor Town Council next Tuesday. Doesn’t anticipate much difficulty with it. The whole concept is so mind boggling that they expected this to go through and none of this to arise. What happens to communities that can’t raise the money to have somebody who is well spoken and familiar with what is going on help them? How do they deal with this?
Gail Marshall - Hope some of these communities can ride on someone else’s coat tails.
Bob Garland – There are communities that will benefit from this.
Paul Murphy – We and the repeal folks are on the same side of the issue. Most of us have signed the repeal petition. Its’ great to be right, but in the end we need to be whole. The school systems that the repeal folks represent will be better off if we’re successful in our endeavor. We intend to make it right for lots of other people and seeking out other folks who will benefit by this amendment and also help with legal funds.
Gail Marshall – Certainly with lobbying.
Paul Murphy – The other point was that before we go throwing RPC money at this issue we need to make sure we have RPC costs taken care of. Have we received any dollars yet?
Rob Liebow – The initial $2,500.
Paul Murphy – 6 x $2,500, there’s $15,000 sitting there plus this latest $2,500.
Gail Marshall – No, it’s not sitting there. Rob claims it’s gone. We’ve already had legal expenses.
Paul Murphy - Yes, I’m saying there is $17,500 more that should be coming to us even though it is going somewhere else.
Rob Liebow – There would be $17,500 per SAU available to pay for legitimate legal invoices.
Paul Murphy – Plus this additional $2,500 we just got word of.
Rob Liebow – For miscellaneous expenses to add to the previous $2,500.
Paul Murphy – So my math at 6 SAU’s and $2,500 would be $17,500. We don’t know what our legal bill is or our other expenses are yet.
Brian Hubbell – There are two different categories of expenses. The Department of Education, through the intermediary of Hannah (Pingree), agreed to pay all of the expenses that are incurred in developing the plan for us.
Rob Liebow – We asked her how $2,500 would cover Swan’s Island coming off more than once for a meeting because it would all be gone by the time three of them came and stayed over night and ate and paid boat ferries. She said, “Just submit those added expenses.”
Brian Hubbell – They will cover expenses that we invoice them for essentially.
Rob Liebow - $2,500 you didn’t have to invoice for. You sent the form in, you got it, and divvy it up for incidentals.
Brian Hubbell – The local community should not be incurring any expenses for developing the plan. If it’s below that ceiling then there’s no discussion about the details of it. What they weren’t going to pay for was legal opposition. That’s what we need our own resources for.
Paul Murphy – Rob said we could apply this $2,500 to anything. Before we start paying for our opposition out of RPC funds, we need to make sure we’re paying for RPC business.
Bob Garland – Understands that the state is not enthusiastic about paying for opposition. Did they expect there would be none? Did they expect that it would be totally free if there was some?
Gail Marshall – We might want to consider stepping out on a big limb and asking the towns if they would consider contributing up to $5,000. We have the current bill and there’s money potentially available if we need to come back and say here’s what we anticipate needing more money for. She spoke with Skip Strong and he was going to follow through talking to people.
Amy Murphy – Gail Marshall could send Scott Grierson an email to ask him to bring this to the selectmen. Tremont school board will talk about this tomorrow night.
Brian Hubbell – Just as a principle, would it make sense to commit schools to pay for half the expense, whatever the invoice is, and then ask our towns to divide the remainder evenly? Whatever our invoice turns out to be for extra legal expenses up to $5,000? And then talk about what the amount will actually end up being.
Jeff Smith – The Town of Mount Desert is in a unique position already since they have that in their budget. Unless other towns have discretionary funds, they can’t get it unless they go through town meeting. Fiscal constraint upon other towns right now.
Gail Marshall – Is this something towns would consider putting in their budget?
Kristin Hutchins – The Southwest Harbor selectmen have not put this item in their budget. She would certainly support Southwest Harbor’s paying their share of these legal expenses, but thinks this should be a school budget item. The school ought to add it to their budget. Ultimately, the money is coming from the same place.
Rob Liebow – The problem is we’re asking for money out of present budgets, not budgets that are being built.
Gail Marshall – The other problem is there is enough of a carryover in the MDIHS budget that we can upfront pay the $17,000 bill but then we need to replenish what has been stripped from that.
Rob Liebow – MDIHS is a big enough budget anyway and has enough carryover to cover it. MDIHS can be the sponge if it has to be.
Bob Garland – Next Tuesday’s meeting is videotaped. The fact that people are having this type of discussion and trying to solve this sort of problem is something that Senator Damon, Hannah Pingree or someone like that should see.
Gail Marshall – The email she sent to Dick Spencer about lobbying and where is MSMA she forwarded to Hannah (Pingree) with a cover that said “I know this isn’t your fault” but just want you to know what our communities are facing and what we’ve already committed and what we’ve already done and what we are trying to pay for. She has done great work for us and will continue to do so, we just wanted her to know, so she could mention to others what we are up against.
Brian Hubbell – It is important that we make this decision publicly. It’s possible that the school can cover the expense one way or another. Properly it is not a school expense. We are engaged in something besides what the school budget is for. That’s why I think it’s important to talk about this at town meetings or wherever it has to happen.
Paul Murphy – This is not a school endeavor, it is a municipal endeavor. This is towns reorganizing their schools. It’s not the schools reorganizing themselves. It is rightfully a municipal expense. If it costs us a few more thousands to chase this amendment to the ground, it’s worth it. This is our last best hope. If this amendment doesn’t fly, we are faced with not playing.
Brian Hubbell – Which would be ¾ of a million dollars.
Gail Marshall – It might not pay off, but that’s our hope. We realize it’s an after the fact investment that we’re asking towns who may not have flexibility in their budgets to come up with.
Kristin Hutchins – Paul, not sure why you’re contradicting my point. Not sure ultimately what’s at stake. The money is going to come from the same place and Southwest Harbor’s municipal budget doesn’t have it any more than Pemetic has it. Don’t think it’s worth arguing about, whether it comes from the school or the town, but there’s a cash flow problem. Who should incur it? Seems tidier that the school incur it. Rob’s comments and Brian, it has to be a public decision. Whether we explain it when we’re talking about school budget or town budget.
Gail Marshall – Paul does make a good point that it’s not just a school issue, we’re faced with the municipalities deciding and it’s ultimately a municipal decision. As Rob explained at the outset, he has combed through the elementary and high school budgets to see what the legal line item is in each of these budgets and we have that number. That’s why we’re proposing aggregating $10,000 out of the existing school budgets and their legal expenses line items to pay for part of this $17,000 and come up with the remaining money through municipalities. Not because we think there is anything inherently logical about this but because we’ve looked at out our budgets and that’s what there is.
Paul Murphy – My point was only that we are not here as school representatives, but as representatives of our municipalities. We may be doing this in a school and some of us may be school board members, but it’s not a school thing. It’s about the schools but not by the schools. It’s by the towns as a whole. Bob, Brian and I act as representatives from the town of Bar Harbor. It’s not a school thing. It’s not a school process. It’s a municipal process.
Brian Hubbell – It’s critical that we understand that we’re talking about the decision to spend the money, which is more important than where the money comes from. It’s all right to use the money if it’s available in the school’s legal budget, but it should still be a municipal decision to spend the money.
Kristin Hutchins – Not speaking for the selectmen, they will meet on the 12th, and she will share these comments, but she hopes it will be a community decision. Not going to belabor what line item it comes from.
Jeff Smith – Who owns that building that sits on Summit Road in Northeast Harbor? It’s not the school that owns it. It’s the town of Mount Desert. I want to keep that property. It’s a municipal decision. It has to be a municipal decision. This is far more than just an educational issue. He will take the $5,000 to the selectmen of Mount Desert.
Gail Marshall – Should consider what we do next as an RPC. We submitted our letter to the Commissioner saying that we thought we had a fine plan so we met the February 1 deadline. There is another deadline of April 1 to have our new plan in. We may need to just wait and see how this shakes out. We will meet in two weeks.
What if this amendment doesn’t pass and we’ve shot that money? Cold comfort, but when you’ve got some sort of legal struggle you are engaged in, you could be hiring a lawyer and paying 10’s of thousands of dollars to get representation in a court and still lose. It’s a gamble. We got the opinion from our legislators and Dick Spencer that they thought there would be specific potential support, supposedly 2/3 in the senate at that point. Impetus for this came from Libby Mitchell who she hopes will be leading the senate next session.
Next meeting Wednesday, February 27 at 7:00 p.m.
Adjournment
MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Brian Hubbell, and unanimously voted to adjourn the meeting at 8:05 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Selena Dunbar, Recording Secretary