Legislators Faced with Raft of School
Reorganization Bills
By Will Tuell
Downeast Coastal Press, 1/27/2009
The Maine Legislature will be wading back into the school reorganization morass this session with no fewer than nine proposed amendments and the distinct possibility of a citizens' initiative directing lawmakers to either repeal the law outright or send it on to voters in the form of a ballot referendum.
“They [Maine Secretary of State] don't have all the signatures verified yet, but from what I understand it's looking pretty good, that there are very few of them that they've had to throw out. So, I think it looks like that's going to be successful as far as the number of signatures [goes],” said Union 102/East Machias superintendent Scott Porter in a phone interview January 23.
Porter added that legislators are in limbo over what they can do if the repeal petition is certified. “Some [legislators] aren't really that clear as to what can be done until that [repeal] is actually voted on by the people of Maine,” he said. “Things are a little uncertain right now. I think probably eventually the attorney general's office will have to weigh in on what can be done.”
“[State Sen.] Kevin Raye (R-Perry) has indicated that he's hearing a lot of people talk about the possibility of repealing the penalties,” said Porter. “A lot of legislators are upset with these penalties. Then you've got the places that will get the spoils of the penalties that have consolidated. I'm sure they'll have a different perspective on it.”
In a subsequent phone interview, Raye said that legislators who originally supported the school consolidation law are starting to rethink the penalties associated with it. “I think there'll be an appetite in the Legislature to revisit the whole issue of penalties,” he said, “now that the law is in place and we are seeing how it's playing out across the state. I think there's a growing sense of discomfort even among those legislators who supported the law, with the impact of penalties. I think that bill will have some legs.”
Raye said that there are areas in the state which voted for consolidation plans only because of the high penalties they would face otherwise.
“The issue that's got to be resolved around it though, is that there are some areas—Knox County being one of them—where people voted reluctantly to accept consolidation plans, and they did so because they had a gun to their head with these penalties. In other words,” said Raye, “they detested the idea, but they thought that they had no choice, that they couldn't bear the cost of the penalties. There's some sense that we have to acknowledge that somehow and figure out if there's some way we can help those communities that made that decision [voting for consolidation] for that reason.”
Porter said that there is also the possibility that penalties would be forgiven if a proposal by Education & Cultural Affairs Committee co-chairwoman Patricia Sutherland (D-Chapman) to create “educational service centers” comes to pass.
“There is an educational service center model that apparently Rep. Patricia Sutherland has sponsored. She seems to be very supportive of that legislation,” said Porter. “If you just share services like what we're trying to do with School Union 134, if that legislation became law, there's a chance the penalties would be forgiven.”
“I think we need another alternative,” continued Porter. “This educational service center could possibly get that done. You wouldn't have to vote as a group of towns. It would be schools—school boards—making that decision to share services with other districts, which is what we've [Union 102] been doing with East Machias and if we expand that, the way it looks now with Union 134, I think we would qualify—if that legislation becomes law.”
Rep. Howard McFadden (R-Dennysville) has also proposed a bill (LD 188) that would effectively push the date school units have to comply with the reorganization law back to July 1, 2010, giving municipalities additional time to find partners and resubmit consolidation plans. McFadden's bill would also defray penalties by a year.
Subsidy Printouts for Reorganized Units
A bill (LD 160) sponsored by Rep. Jim
Schatz (D-Blue Hill) also seeks to require that Department of Education
(DOE) officials provide yearly subsidy printouts to individual municipalities
within an alternative organizational structure (AOS) or a regional school
unit (RSU), something that opponents of the current law see as a glaring
loophole.
The summary of Schatz's legislation reads as follows:
“This bill requires the Commissioner of Education to also provide the governing bodies of [RSUs] and [AOSs] with the computation and the amount of the allocation of school subsidy that the commissioner has estimated for the [RSU] and each member municipality in the [RSU] or for the [AOS] and each member entity in the [AOS].”
Porter, a vocal critic of Commissioner Gendron’s earlier reluctance to release these reports in the past, said that the DOE plans on continuing to offer these subsidy printouts to reorganized units for another year, but after that will stop doing so. Units that have not consolidated will continue to receive their printouts as they do now. The subsidy printouts are vital to school planners as they help determine what a school's annual budget equates to.
“I think there will be support for that [bill]. According to [DOE] they're going to do that [provide subsidy printouts] for the first year and then they're going to stop doing it [for approved plans],” said Porter. “I've heard the Commissioner say that she's put in legislation to do that very thing, but I haven't seen it yet.”
Maine's school reorganization law was passed as part of the fiscal year 2008-09 biennial budget and amended last year to include the AOS structure. The Maine Coalition to Save Schools submitted more than 60,000 petitions last October asking that the law be repealed. A ruling on the repeal petition is expected in early to mid February.
“We'll see how these all play out,” said Raye. “I think what you see with all these bills that have been put in, is that there's a great sense of dissatisfaction with the law.”