Porter Presses Gendron on School Subsidy Figures

Will Tuell

Downeast Coastal Press, 11/04/2008

At last week’s public meeting in Machias featuring education commissioner Susan Gendron, Harrington resident George Crawford queried Gendron on how towns would allocate state subsidy in an alternate organizational structure if the entire AOS gets one subsidy printout vs. each member of the unit getting their own.

“If you're in a school union, each town gets their own individual subsidy check,” said Crawford. “Now it's all going to be going into this one big pot for the AOS. Is there any way that the different towns would be able to at least get a projection as to what their actual subsidies would be?”

Gendron said that she had promised Union 102 Superintendent Scott Porter such a printout—though she stopped short of saying whether that information would be available before towns vote December 9.

“If your cost sharing is different than the state formula, I'm not going to be able to calculate every AOS and how you distribute that money. If it's comparable and equal to what we're doing for everybody else, that won't be a problem. I've made a commitment to Scott [Porter] that we would look at that to see if the department can help.”

Porter, who has expressed frustration with the department’s slow response to his request, said that Gendron would have to provide individual printouts to each town or school unit that opts out of the AOS in any case, and that it should be relatively easy to do so currently. “If this [AOS] gets voted down, you will have to give a printout on state subsidy to every town, right? So you do have the capability to do it?”

“Not all AOS's are following what is current calculation,” said Gendron. “Most, yes, absolutely. But not all. The other pieces, the current statute says that I treat that AOS as a unit. I know what you want, you want to be able to break it down like an SAD so that here's what each town in that AOS is.”

“Exactly,” said Porter. “Like we do right now. If you could make that happen, and allow people to withdraw, we would probably have nine AOS's in the state of Maine.”

Gendron then responded: “I made a commitment to you that I would go back to the finance team and look at what we have to do to be able to give you that printout. I'm willing to go and make sure that we can make that happen.”

When East Machias Selectman Kenneth “Bucket” Davis reminded Gendron that the AOS votes December 9, suggesting that the requested financial information would be important for voters to consider in weighing their vote, Gendron would not commit to having the individual printouts prior to the vote.

—W.T.