Schools and service

Maine’s school-funding formula will return next legislative session as Sen. John Nutting tries again to remove the consideration of local income levels as a factor in determining which school district gets how large a share. Since the formula is meant to compensate towns unable to raise money because they are poor in property, Sen. Nutting is right that keeping income in the formula doesn’t make sense. But until recently the push to remove income has ignored the large burden that service-center communities carry as they host tax-exempt organizations and provide services for surrounding communities.

Relatively low incomes in service centers has allowed them to attract a larger share of school aid than they would based on property values alone, which is why lawmakers from these communities have been united in their opposition to LD 1, the senator’s bill to remove income. To understand why this isn’t mere selfishness, consider that in some service centers, enormous parts of valuation on properties – many of which still require all city services – are tax exempt. This includes 49 percent of Orono, 40 percent of Brunswick, 29 percent of Bangor, 25 percent of Machias and 24 percent of Presque Isle.

Without income in the funding formula, the city of Portland would lose another $2 million or so in addition to what it is losing anyway; Bangor would lose about $600,000; Ellsworth, $350,000; Augusta, $300,000; Lewiston, $240,000. There isn’t a good reason to force the school-funding formula to cover municipal costs unrelated to education, but there also hasn’t been a good alternative proposed, certainly nothing that would make up for these losses, which, statewide, add up to something like $5 million and have caused service centers to have some of the highest property taxes in Maine, producing a range of problems of their own.

When Sen. Nutting revives LD 1 in January, however, he says he will tie it to the municipal program called Revenue Sharing II, which recognizes the costs of operating a service center but has been badly underfunded. Where he would find the money for both school funding and Revenue Sharing II is a bit mysterious at this point – current revenue sources already are behind projections.

But a dollar-for-dollar trade in those accounts and a guarantee (as much as anything can be guaranteed in Augusta, anyway) that this is something more than a one-year fling should attract the interest of service-center lawmakers. At the very least it would more accurately account for costs in municipalities and thereby give lawmakers a better sense of what state money was paying for.