State board endorses school aid formulas Alternative models would increase funding

FALMOUTH – The State Board of Education on Wednesday endorsed two different funding recommendations, each calling for more than $743 million in general purpose aid to schools. The amount represents a 2.7 percent, or $22.5 million, increase over the current year.

While one model is based on current law, the other is an alternative formula designed to insure that every student has the programs and services needed to achieve the eight standards making up Maine’s Learning Results.

Meeting at Falmouth Memorial Library, board members made it clear they preferred the new model, called Essential Programs and Services, and that the other was a fallback in case the governor and the Legislature didn’t approve the favored plan.

The Learning Results require that students meet standards in career preparation, English, health and physical education, mathematics, modern and classical languages, science and technology, social studies and visual and performing arts before they can graduate high school.

The state Department of Education was required by law to submit both funding models.

Currently, school districts receive state funding based on the previous year’s amount. But under Essential Programs, education costs would be “customized” based on student and staff demographics. Districts’ allocations would depend on each child’s unique needs and must be enough for salaries, instructional materials and supplies, as well as the operation and maintenance of facilities. The additional costs of special needs and low income students also would be recognized.

Commissioner of Education J. Duke Albanese said the request is based on the rate of inflation and the “very modest growth rate in total state revenue projected for next year.” He said his recommendation “was an attempt to balance the needs of schools working on major education reform efforts, and increasing pressures on local property taxpayers, with the reality of fiscal constraints facing state policymakers.”

The projected state budget shortfall is approaching $1 billion for the next biennium.

“Given the structural gap … it’s probably about as well as we can do,” said Sen. Mary Cathcart, D-Orono. “I don’t think there will be many departments getting that kind of increase. We’ll have to see how much money there really is and we’ll have to see what the governor is proposing. But I’d guess education would be right on top as far as anything getting an increase. Everyone cares about schools.”

Calling the Essential Programs model “critical to the future of Maine,” Albanese said the plan is to phase in the model between next year and either 2007-2008 or 2009-2010. Ultimately, the state would share 50 percent of all costs. Cushions for districts experiencing significant state funding losses because of demographics and property valuation changes would be used during the phase-in period and eliminated by 2007-2008.

However, Essential Programs doesn’t address the question of how much of the costs of education should be shouldered by the community or the state. Nor does the model prescribe how state and communities should each pay for their share.

After the meeting, educators praised the recommended increase, but said the litmus test for the new funding method would be in the printout that the Department of Education distributes annually with details of how each school district would be affected by the proposed funding allocation.

Dale Douglass, director of the Maine School Management Association, the administrative arm of the Maine School Boards Association and the Maine School Superintendents Association, said his group supports the new formula.

“Now that the proposal’s on the table, we need to see how it will translate to each district,” he said.

The state will distribute a printout in February, according to Yellow Light Breen, spokesman for the state Department of Education, who said it would be hard to speculate on how Essential Programs would affect specific school systems.

“There are so many elements in the new approach … and some might cut one way for a given district, some another way,” he said. “Anything that pushes up equity in funding would generally be liked by rural, poor communities.”

Leonard Ney, superintendent in SAD 64 (Corinth area), wasn’t enthusiastic about the new funding method.

“It’s redistributing poverty,” he said. He said the state wouldn’t be able to fund 50 percent of education costs “unless there’s a major change in the tax structure.”

In a statement included with their endorsement, board members said in light of the budget shortfall, they “tempered” their recommended funding level, and that “the 2.7 percent [increase] will certainly be challenging to realize, yet it will meet only a part of the needs in our education systems statewide.”