The GPA debate

When lawmakers last left school funding for 2003, the state’s share of General Purpose Aid to Education stood at an increase of 2.3 percent, which everyone admitted was too low to make progress in either catching up with earlier losses or meeting the financial demands of the impending Essential Programs and Services, a funding system the Department of Education would like to begin in a couple of years. Wait until the winter of 2002, they promised last spring, and we’ll find more money for GPA. Education Commissioner Duke Albanese, despite all that has happened between then and now, apparently thought lawmakers still meant what they said, and suggested, should the money be available, increasing GPA to 4 percent.

Even that is not enough, however, to keep pace with the new demands on local school districts, which are laboring to meet the higher expectations of the state’s Learning Results standards. Back when the Maine budget ran a surplus and GPA funding came in larger increases, it was understood by lawmakers that 5 percent increases were needed just to keep pace with costs and funding-formula changes. Six percent allowed schools to gain a little ground; hit 7 percent and school-board members and property-tax payers began to think there was hope after all. The current 2.3 percent is a net loss by almost any measure.

Despite this, some legislators, including Senate President Rick Bennett, say they are willing to consider cuts to the already low GPA increase, rather than reduce other programs. But here is why school funding is not like other programs: Cut, for instance, the Department of Environmental Protection and it might cancel a water-quality monitoring program. Cut the Department of Economic and Community Development and it might cancel travel to trade shows to boost Maine. But cut Education and schools cannot decide to cut math or to teach fewer children. They could, as some will be quick to point out, cut football. Try it, however, and prepared for yearlong fight that in the end won’t save nearly enough to make a difference (In Bangor, football makes up between one-tenth and two-tenths of 1 percent of the budget).

Nevertheless, GPA is an attractive target to some lawmakers because it holds a lot of money -some $718 million this year – and because they know the local contribution, through property taxes, will be there to soften whatever cuts the state enacts. Unfortunately, this way of thinking has been so common in Augusta that now, while one group of lawmakers spends time figuring out how to pass education costs down to the locals, another group meets endlessly on ways to relieve the property-tax burden. Augusta can continue to chase its tail on this issue or it can act responsibly and recognize that it must pay for education, if for no other reason than that its mandates are expensive.

The 2.3 percent increase is harmful enough. Don’t make it worse by putting this meager increase on the bargaining table.