March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Superintendent blasts funding cuts> Calais official tells governor inequities are destroying Maine’s poorer towns

CALAIS — Rural Maine school districts are being forced either to cut programs or ask for more money from already strapped property taxpayers. Superintendent Richard Marx of Union 106 (Calais area) said he and other superintendents from Washington and Aroostook counties met this month to discuss the problem, and they agreed something needs to be done.

In a letter to the governor, Marx has summed up the problem for his schools. “Using 1991-92 as a base year and subtracting out debt service and bus purchases, shows what has happened the past three years. Calais has lost $463,202, while Falmouth has gained $521,852, even though Falmouth has $1,200 more to spend per pupil,” he wrote.

Marx told the governor that he had served on the committee that developed the school finance law more than 30 years ago. Equity has been decimated by recent state aid cuts, he said. “What has been happening these past three years is a straight percentage cut which has resulted in those towns the formula depicts as needing the most help taking the biggest hits,” he wrote.

Marx said the governor had responded to the letter and thanked him for his “historical” perspective.

In a graph, Marx compared the losses or gains of several school districts in recent years. The chart showed, for example, that between 1991-1995, Cape Elizabeth gained $483,263 in state funds, and its per pupil cost was $5,286. Caribou, on the other hand, lost $474,797 between 1991-95, and its per pupil cost was only $4,420.

Marx said if the state did not reach an equitable solution that helped rural areas, he and other superintendents would be faced with having to make serious cuts in programs. He said he would have to cut $204,000 from the proposed 1995-96 Calais school budget, which would mean 10 staff positions.

“South Portland is talking about hiring an elementary librarian. I don’t have that. We’ve never had an elementary librarian. I don’t even know what one looks like. Cape Elizabeth is talking about, I think, it is their fourth-grade French program. Who the hell ever heard of that? I don’t have a fourth-grade French program. I am lucky to maintain the foreign language program in the high school,” he said.


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