Tool time

Senate Republicans have tossed a wrench into the budget works built by the governor, Democrats and House Republicans. It’s probably not enough to bring it to a halt — nor should it — but amid the clang and clatter, a good point can be heard.

In general, it’s about borrowing, taking on debt, in a supplemental budget in a legislative session that had a $345-million surplus to work with. Specifically, it’s about borrowing $33 million to construct a replacement for the Augusta Mental Health Institute. More specifically, it’s about borrowing through the Governmental Facilities Authority, that oft-reviled mechanism that allows lawmakers to borrow without voter approval.

There is no question a new AMHI is needed, long overdue. Constructed 16 years before the birth of Freud, originally called the Maine Insane Hospital, the 160-year-old oversized, obsolete structure has outlived its usefulness, as the sorry record of scathing reports, consent decrees and tragedies attests. That’s why it has been clear from the start of this session that using one-time money in the surplus for this one-time expense was the highest priority.

That’s why, when this important project suddenly changed from cash-and-carry to the installment plan, GOP senators, led by Jane Amero and Rick Bennett, became justifiably alarmed. There are important principles here, principles of not borrowing when it’s not necessary, of setting priorities and sticking to them.

Where the GOP senators go astray, though, is in drawing a straight line from the AMHI borrowing to the $30 million technology endowment in the majority budget and from there to Gov. King’s laptop proposal. They say the state essentially is borrowing $33 million to buy laptops, using AMHI as a front. They could just as well say the state is borrowing $33 million to fund two years’ worth of snack tax repeal, or any combination of parts of all the other tax cuts and spending proposals. The money to meet one high priority does not have to come from one source. Surely clever lawmakers devoted to avoiding unnecessary debt can shave a few million from many sources and reach the same goal.

The technology initiative is important, one of the most important components of the majority budget. The study commission that will spend the rest of the year determining precisely how Maine can best keep pace with the rest of the world is hardly, as the GOP senators assert, a rubber stamp for the governor’s proposal to provide laptops to all seventh-graders — the knee-jerk skepticism that greeted that proposal has reached across party lines.

Which is unfortunate and which is why the study commission is necessary. Someone has to read the large and growing body of research on the substantial and demonstrable educational benefits that come from putting Internet-connected technology in the hands of students both at school and at home. Someone has to talk to the experts, to keep track of how fast other states are moving in that direction. Lawmakers couldn’t be bothered — they were too busy learning to pronounce the word “laptops” in a tone of voice usually reserved for “sewer sludge.” The study commission will do that work and when it’s done there must be money set aside to actually do something.

Still, the GOP senators are correct in that there is no need for this budget to include any borrowing. Now that their wrench has otten everyone’s attention, perhaps the full Legislature, when it reconvenes next week, it will find the proper tools to make some more subtle adjustments.