The Legislature will take final action this week on a referendum proposal from the governor’s office to compete with the initiative from the Maine Municipal Association. The MMA proposal would require the state to fund 55 percent of local education immediately. The governor’s proposal gets to the same 55 percent, but in five years.

The outcome seems certain: The Legislature will put a competing measure on the ballot that will be confusing to voters. The language on the ballot will be deceptively similar, and will not mention the key difference. The MMA, with some justification, argues that the goal of the competing measure is to confuse voters. Gov. Baldacci and the Legislature, also with some justification, insist that the confusion is inevitable given the badly drafted MMA proposal.

But I would challenge the governor and the Legislature to rise above the political rancor of the moment and give the voters a simple choice in the fall: now or in five years. My proposal is simple. Instead of passing a competing measure, the governor and the Legislature should enact their proposal as law, now. Both sides agree that the funding level needs to go to 55 percent, so enact that level. The sides disagree over the timing, so enact the slower five-year timetable favored by the governor and the Legislature. In the fall, the voters would face a clear choice. By voting for the MMA initiative, they can accelerate the timetable for 55 percent state funding. By rejecting the MMA proposal, they leave the five-year timetable in place.

Absent this action by the governor and the Legislature, supporters of local education have every reason to believe that the purpose of the competing measure is really to defeat the 55 percent requirement. The governor discovered the needs of local education only after the MMA proposal was laid before the Legislature. Some legislators hope that the competing measure will doom the entire affair.

In the past, I have heard more than one legislator complain that local schools already get too much money from state coffers. And the state has developed a penchant for meeting budget crises by reducing support for education. Moreover, the recent history on competing measures is troubling. When Gov. King put a competing forestry measure on the ballot, the result after two votes was no action. Given the small differences in the two measures this time, the potential for confusion is even greater.

There are two other differences between the governor’s proposal and the MMA initiative: special education funding and growth in local municipal budgets. One is difficult to solve; the other trivial.

Special education is indeed a special problem. In the unenlightened past, schools often pushed children with special needs out the door. Mandating adequate special education programs was necessary to end these injustices. But schools became responsible for supporting social services for special education students that should be the responsibility of state human services. Some school districts pay more than $100,000 a year for a single student for institutionalized care. At least one town dissolved itself in the face of crushing costs for such institutional care. On the other hand, why should local districts be absolved of financial responsibility to address the needs of students with dyslexia, with communication disorders, or similar learning disabilities? This is a tough issue. The governor and Legislature ought to take some action on institutional care now and return to the broader issue in the next legislative session.

The restriction on growth of local budgets to 4.6 percent is unnecessary. It is a transparent political gimmick to shift the blame for rising local property taxes onto local governments. At last week’s Legislature hearing, no one could think of a single town that had exceeded that growth rate. So why include it? This provision is so clearly a thumb in the eye of the MMA that it is easy to understand why the MMA is furious about the competing measure. To paraphrase an old Sean Connery line, it would be better to fix the problem than to fix the blame.

Of course, it would be even better if the governor and the MMA would agree on a timetable to implement the 55 percent. It is simply not credible to believe that a compromise cannot be found. In return for an agreement, the MMA should agree to campaign against its own initiative.

Unfortunately, the two sides are more concerned about scoring political points than making this issue clear for the voters. Unless legislators hear from some voters now, voters are going to get this mess in the fall. I know that it’s August and that you’re at the lake. But you can save us a lot of trouble if you make two calls. Call your state representative and your state senator. Tell them to clean up this mess, this week, or you will vote for the MMA proposal in the fall. That’s what I intend to do.

Ralph Townsend is a professor of economics at the University of Maine.