The GPA debate

Legislative Democrats, and, indeed, the entire Education Committee, had high hopes this past session for a major increase in General Purpose Aid to Education. They discovered — and should have known beforehand — that high hopes alone rarely pass legislation. Before the next session begins, advocates for a higher GPA and the Department of Education should sit down together and find a means for identifying and campaigning for a fair state contribution to K-12 education.

The expressed level of funding under a 1985 statute is at least 55 percent of the total, but in 15 years the Legislature has never made it. Since then, changes that include property-tax relief under the Homestead Act and new money for school renovations make it less and less likely that the 55 percent level will be reached in the next 15 years or ever. Lawmakers should be honest enough to tell the public that, under changed conditions, they have no intention of meeting the ’85 statutory language.

The numbers tossed out by the majority party early in the session were as high as $48 million in new money for GPA; the committee liked $44 million. But the budget emerged with $22 million, a figure that both Gov. King and Republicans probably were prepared to agree to without debate. Senate Republicans, in fact, may get to claim victory, or the closest thing to it, because back in February, they advocated for spending a total of $100 million on education. In the end, the budget included $30 million for technology, $27 million for renovation, $22 million for GPA, $22 million for the UMaine System and $5.5 million for the technical-college system.

But the higher GPA figures were not seriously debated during final budget negotiations because there were no organized efforts behind them. As the state’s share of GPA rises to more than $660 million annually, it will become increasingly important for supporters of a higher GPA to make their case well before a session starts so that lawmakers know what to expect going in. That also means understanding where the Education Department is headed, particularly in the next few years as it tries to base school funding on essential programs and services.

The new GPA number approved by the Legislature keeps Maine on track to meet funding goals set in 1999, but it does little to make up for the lost revenues of nearly a decade ago. Between the old session and the new, GPA advocates need to find out whether these revenues can ever be made up or whether lawmakers are content to conclude time has passed that money by.