Another year, another massive surplus, another chance to thank property taxpayers for providing the state more money than it knows what to do with. The difference this year is that lawmakers have a new school funding formula that shows exactly how much the state needs to spend to give local taxpayers the break they deserve.

The announced $250 million surplus for the biennium comes just as the Department of Education is releasing its revamped Maine Education Assessment, the statewide survey of students’ performance. By the MEA’s high standards, Maine students have a long way to go, particularly in the areas of math and science. And though Maine students score very well compared with the national peers, a significant percent are below the acceptable range in the new test. Helping these students improve will require resources, and with Maine’s fourth annual surprise surplus growing larger by the day in Augusta, the answer is obvious.

The new funding formula emphasizes the average amount of money per pupil required for a school to meet its operating costs. Even with substantial increases in school funding last session, the state acknowledges that it will not meet its required share of operating expenses until 2003, under current projections. That means property taxpayers, once again, will be forced to pick up the difference or, once again in the poorer communities, students will do without.

Lawmakers who continue to doubt the connection between inadequate state funding for schools and high property taxes need to look no further than the recent study by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. It examined property taxes in each state between 1986 and 1996 and concluded that Maine not only had among the highest taxes but that they were the fastest-rising during that time. Not coincidentally, from 1989-90 to 1996-97, according to University of Maine economist Ralph Townsend, state spending on K-12 education essentially remained unchanged in constant dollars and fell by 2 percent to 4 percent a year when adjusted for inflation.

The education-funding gap, of course, was paid for by local property taxes. The higher local taxes allowed the state to distribute less than it would have otherwise, and the surplus is the result. And if it were merely a matter paying for schools through property taxes or through other state revenue sources such as income or sales taxes, the end result wouldn’t much matter. But because the value of property varies so widely from town to town and across the state, some school districts are able to tax property just a little bit and easily pay for their schools while others cannot tax property enough even to meet minimum education requirements. Equity demands that the state distribute funding in a way that allows all students to achieve.

The Legislature can deal honestly with property taxpayers by speeding up its schedule to pay for the state’s share of the real operating costs of schools. It should do the same for its chronic underfunding of program costs — the money for special education, transportation and vocational education. The funding per pupil for operating costs is proposed to rise from $4,020 in 2000 to $4,307 in 2001, well short of the $4,811 actually required. The state cannot make up that difference in a single year, but it can and should exceed the level it set for itself.

After so many years of surprise surpluses created on the backs of property taxpayers, that is not asking very much.