Option of Regional Unions will allow more extensive school reorganization
Many school Reorganization Planning Committees are finding that local expenses in reorganized districts will be higher than the local cost of not reorganizing -- even after adding in penalties for non-compliance. These higher costs may result from the additional costs of uniform regional pay scales and cost-shifts between municipalities that are beyond remedy by any regional cost-sharing formulas.
Voters in these towns will vote down reorganization plans.
As a result, fewer reorganized districts will be formed and Maine will end up with more than 80 regional school administrations. State and local taxpayers will miss opportunities for more efficient schools and cost savings. Voters will be angry at the State about the resulting penalties.
Regional Unions provide an alternative vehicle for some districts to achieve regional efficiencies without incurring prohibitive additional local expenses.
Regional Unions will allow these districts to establish more coherent regional administration, more coordinated curricula, more common bargaining units, and more overall collaborative cooperation than will otherwise be possible – exactly the kind of administrative consolidation that was the original purpose of the whole effort of school reorganization.
In Regional Unions, citizens retain their close local connection and budgetary oversight of their schools while still realizing the educational benefits which result from coordinated regional cooperation. The State saves no less money than it would otherwise from reorganization and the schools are improved.
Local taxpayers and the State both will benefit from the greater scope and success of school reorganization made possible through Regional School Unions.
Does allowing Regional Unions allow too many school administrative units?
Regional Unions are subject to the same minimum size limits as other reorganized school units. Regional Unions will have the same core functions as other RSUs: a single superintendent, a single central business office, and a single coordinated curriculum -- all overseen by a single regional school board. These same regional board members will also represent their respective local education units within the Regional Union.
· Map of RSUs proposed as of 12/01/2007
· Map of proposed RSUs with existing school unions overlaid
Don’t Regional Unions cost more than other school governance models?
The Department of Education recently has suggested that Union governance, on average, costs at least $1000 more annually per pupil than other forms of school governance.
That statistic is categorically misapplied.
Education policy analyst David Silvernail, in a January 8, 2008 presentation to the Legislature’s Education Committee, reported that no clean conclusion can be drawn about the relationship between overall per-pupil cost and governance structure in towns of similar size and valuation.
In particular, administration costs are indistinguishable between Unions and other governance structures. Compare system administration costs in Bar Harbor’s Union 98 school with those of consolidated districts in towns of similar size with similar coastal valuations.
Bar Harbor, Union 98: 4.14%, ($474 per student)
SAD 28, Camden: 4.12%, ($454)
SAD 50, Thomaston: 4.89% ($593)
SAD 56 in Searsport: 4.33%, ($519)
Regional Unions provide a vehicle for municipal school units to reduce administrative expenses by sharing them with other municipalities. So, by definition, Unions are administratively at least as efficient as municipal school districts and almost certainly substantially more efficient than their member municipalities would be if they operated independently.
Like standard Reorganized School Units, Regional Unions are governed by the same elected citizens who serve on local boards. Only the same trivial expenses of governance are incurred under either model.
So, what is shown by the Department’s numbers is evidence that Union structures may more comfortably, and perhaps even more efficiently, serve regions with fewer people (and therefore smaller class sizes) and also regions of higher valuation (and therefore less state subsidy) where more local money is spent in the classroom on expanded educational programs.
To see where the extra $1000 per pupil is spent in Union schools, compare the State average for “regular instruction” with this same cost center in the following high performing Union schools:
Maine average: $4,119
Bar Harbor: $5,238
Boothbay: $5,774
Mount Desert: $6,383
Palermo: $5,134
Veazie: $6,457
This is where the money goes in many Union schools: to the classroom, the essential core of school business and the very area of education that reorganization is intended to bolster, not to inefficient regional administration.
The hard fact is that rural areas must spend more per pupil to afford their students the same educational opportunities that are enjoyed by students in areas where greater population density readily supports large schools. Rural and isolated areas that can locally support good schools, will. Areas that can’t, wither.
· Per-pupil total education cost as a function of governance structure and unit size, | GRAPH
· School spending as a function of local income and school unit size, MDIschools.net | GRAPH
Doesn’t local control cost the state more money?
On average, per-pupil costs of state subsidy are actually nearly $1000 lower in municipally governed school systems than they are in regionalized School Administrative Districts.
Regional (School Administrative Districts):
State's cost per pupil: $4,858
Local (Unions and other municipal districts):
State's cost per pupil: $3,906
Local governance means local support.
· State subsidy of education as a function of local or regional governance | GRAPH
· Per-pupil total education cost as a function of governance structure and unit size, | GRAPH
· State aid as a percentage of total local school spending | MAP
Doesn’t local control deprive students of educational opportunity?
Identical percentages of schools within consolidated School Administrative Districts (42 of 313) and municipalities (46 of 359) are classified as higher performing. However, 21% (66 of 313) of the schools in SADs are classified as lower performing, while only 11% (40 of 359) of municipal schools are.
Schools without local oversight are more likely to underperform.
How are budgets raised and validated in Regional Unions?
Each municipality will budget, approve, validate, and assess its own share of local expense along with its portion of the regional budget. Expenses for regional core functions, as set out by the reorganization plan approved at local referendum, will be set by the combined local boards and these regional expenses will become part of each local budget and subject to the same requirements of local validation.
No one scrutinizes school budgets more closely than a municipal warrant committee and local voters at town meeting.
Don’t Union superintendents spend too much of their time in too many local meetings?
There is no doubt that Union superintendents frequently are intimately connected with their schools and communities. Many find this vertical integration to be an efficient way to stay closely informed on essential administrative issues. Similarly, many Union schools directly benefit from this contact from superintendents who carry a unifying educational vision.
Local issues often are more efficiently resolved at local meetings then they would be at prolonged regional meetings. So the total time spent directly in local meetings rather than in meetings with intermediary subcommittees may not be greater than in consolidated districts.
Schools that are closely supported through governance and administrators can achieve greater educational goals more efficiently.
Will Regional Unions divert state funds for education from areas like Portland that don’t have Unions?
No. State General Purpose Aid to education is distributed according to the State’s formula for Essential Programs and Services which is regionally altered to account for local labor markets and relative local property valuation. Subsidies are not affected by the structure of school governance. The MacDonald/Damon amendment carries no fiscal impact; it shifts no money in state aid.
In fact, the most recent proposed state subsidy figures continue to suggest that state aid generally flows more toward larger, denser districts.
School expenses above state-determined and state-limited levels of GPA are borne only by local taxpayers.
· State aid as a percentage of total local school spending | MAP
References:
Maine Department of Education, Handout to legislators, February 14, 2008
Gordon A. Donaldson, Jr., School Unions in Maine: A Viable Alternative, April 2, 2007
Department of Education, 2006-07 Financial Indicators for School Administrative Units -- percentages
Brian Hubbell; Notes from Education Committee work session, January 8, 2008.
Department of Education, 2006-07 Financial Indicators for School Administrative Units – per-pupil expenditure amounts
David L. Silvernail; The Identification of Higher and Lower Performing Maine Schools, School Profiles and Characteristics; Maine Education Policy Research Institute; May 2007
MDIschools.net, State subsidy for education as a function of school governance structure, data re-sorted from: "General Purpose Aid for Local based on the Enacted Budget", Maine Department of Education
Gordon Donaldson, School Quality and Cost: What Difference Does the District Make?, February 2008
MDIschools.net, Per-pupil Maine State subsidy for education, 2006-2007 as a function of governance and size of school administrative unit, February 28, 2008
MDIschools.net, Per-pupil total education cost as a function of governance structure and unit size, March 13, 2008
MDIschools.net, School spending as a function of local income and school unit size, March 15, 2008
MDIschools.net, Size, subsidy, income, spending, and equity: a comparison of high-performing high schools,
MDIschools.net, 3/21/2008
Contact: Brian Hubbell, sparkflashgap@gmail.com
