Bricks and mortar

When bills regarding repairs and renovations to the state’s public schools come up for debate, lawmakers should pay close attention to what Senate President Mark Lawrence has to say. He’s been there, seen that.

The way Maine has allowed its schools to deteriorate is a crime and Lawrence spent a good part of this past week at the scene. He sloshed trough the soggy basement library at East Auburn Elementary. He stepped over fallen ceiling tile at Hampden Academy. He authored one of three pieces of legislation that directly address the $70 million-worth of health and safety problems that exist at more than 100 schools throughout the state.

The last Legislature nibbled at the problem, setting up a $20 million revolving loan fund for repairs, inexplicably coming up short of the $30 million recommended by Gov. King’s Commission on School Facilities. Lawrence’s bill would fill that gap and more with an additional one-time General Fund appropriation of an additional $20 million.

It also proposes $20 million to accelerate the state’s retirement of debt for new schools and an increase in the debt-service limit on school districts for construction projects. As for the other two bills in the hopper, one proposes a $100 million bond for construction and repair; the other a $35 million bond for construction and repair, along with a $10 million appropriation to bring the revolving loan fund up to the commission’s recommendation.

And there’s the snag in all three: building new schools and fixing old ones are two separate issues, it’s bad business to mingle them. Maine’s population is stagnant. It’s school-age population is in decline. The true level of need for new construction cannot be known until existing schools are mended and the regulations that often hinder the logical solution to space needs — additions — are revised. If, as many believe, much new construction is undertaken to accommodate a population shift from city to suburb, the Legislature should decide the extent to which taxpayers should subsidize the emptying out of a perfectly good in-town school.

All three bills also fail to address a loophole that results from the hodgepodge of laws on school finance — the money school districts borrow from the revolving loan fund counts against their General Purpose Aid allocation. Surely the Legislature did not intend to penalize districts for keeping their schools in shape.

Still, Lawrence’s bill has one distinct advantage over the others — it calls for a direct appropriation rather than a bond issue. Bond proposals carry with them the whiff of wishful thinking, as though the project in question would be nice, but not necessary. For years, lawmakers have underfunded General Purpose Aid to education, making schools and local property taxpayers choose between roof repairs and textbooks. Since the state picks up most of the tab for building schools, it is only fair that the locals should keep them from crumbling. It will be even more fair when the Legislature acknowledges its contribution to crumble.