AUGUSTA – Efforts to reduce or eliminate Gov. Angus King’s $25 million laptop computer fund were unsuccessful Friday after members of the Maine House argued and lost votes on amendments to a proposed $160 million supplemental budget.

Although one minor technical amendment to straighten out some language in the bill was approved, the budget bill’s spending priorities remained identical to the bill passed 12-1 Tuesday by the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. With a final vote of 105-34 in the House, the bill now proceeds to the Senate where members of that body are expected to offer amendments Monday.

Although 15 amendments surfaced Friday in the House, only a proposal submitted by Rep. Nancy Sullivan, D-Biddeford, came close to winning approval. Her amendment, which was defeated 71-69, would have transferred $9 million from the laptop fund and allocated $5 million to local education and $4 million to a so-called cushion for school districts facing reduced state funding for education as a result of declining student populations and high property values.

“We have a flawed school funding formula, it doesn’t work and when we don’t fund it, it works even more poorly,” Sullivan said. “I don’t believe we should continue to wrong the children who have no voice. All I wanted to do was level it out. I hope the governor has heard this message and will do something to put a real cushion in the budget.”

The budget was advanced because of a decline in revenues and an increase in expenditures since the two-year budget was approved last year. It provides a $4 million cushion for school districts and a little more than $730 million in local education aid. It also includes about $37 million to allow the state to conform to federal tax law changes.

Most of the money needed to balance the budget was taken out of the Rainy Day Fund which, upon the budget’s approval, will be reduced from $100 million to $15 million. Even those few millions won’t be entirely available because the Appropriations Committee included language in the budget to use that money to cover unanticipated costs associated with the tax conformity package.

Still, that didn’t stop Rep. Chris Muse, D-South Portland and Rep. Boyd Marley, D-Portland, from attempting to transfer millions from the Rainy Day Fund for local education. Their amendments, however, were defeated in a series of lopsided votes. The laptop fund, also known as the Maine Learning Technology Fund, withstood more than a half-dozen attempts to either drain or significantly deplete that account.

Some of the other failed budget amendments attempted to offer imaginative solutions to perceived problems, including one offered by Rep. Susan Kasprzak, R-Newport. Her proposal would have taken a total of $611,518 from state agencies that offer abortion counseling and used the money to increase funding for local education.

After the final budget vote, Rep. Randy Berry, a Livermore Falls Democrat who also serves as House Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he understood that representatives from many Maine communities were not receiving the levels of funding for local education they needed.