BANGOR -School district superintendents and teacher unions, at times adversaries, were united Wednesday as they pushed for passage of Question 1A, a proposition they said would help taxpayers and schools.

Sitting at a table together, but this time not negotiating for teacher contracts, representatives of Maine school districts and the state’s primary teacher’s union, the Maine Education Association, said it was time to end what they said was underfunding, rhetoric, delays and stalled schemes.

At issue is three-part Question 1, with 1A proffered by the Maine Municipal Association requiring the Legislature next year to fund 55 percent of general purpose aid, up from about 42 percent this year.

Approval of 1A would jump the state’s share about $246 million the first year and is supported by the educators. Special education funding, what SAD 48 [Newport area] Superintendent William Braun described as “the mother of all unfunded mandates” would be covered 100 percent by the state.

Question 1B, developed by legislators and Gov. John Baldacci, would increase funding to 55 percent but spread it over a five-year period. Question 1C rejects both the previous plans with advocates saying that it still provides the Legislature with incentive to make changes.

And although the long-standing emphasis behind the MMA’s 1A has been tax relief, MEA President Rob Walker acknowledged Wednesday that it was hoped that some communities would use the tax relief toward increased funding to schools. These communities might find they have what Walker described as “a little wiggle room” and decide to bring education funding up to a more acceptable level.

“We recognize that a great many communities are assumed to apply this to property tax relief,” he said. “That wouldn’t be our fondest wish, but we recognize that as a reality.”

Superintendents said their communities have increasingly carried the burden and they wonder how long that will last. For some, the taxpayer threshold already has been breached.

Braun said his school budget has been voted down four times by residents riled by rising property taxes.

“What I’m seeing with taxpayers are angry taxpayers who are tired of high property taxes,” Braun said.

Superintendent Leonard Ney said his five-town Bangor-area SAD 64 has been shortchanged $675,000 by the state and that has meant reducing staff and programs, delaying completion of capital improvement projects such as roof repairs, and not replacing outdated textbooks. He estimated that his school district has been short-funded close to $3 million since 1990.

Ney, who has been involved in school financing for 26 years, said approval of Question 1A would send a message to lawmakers that “there’s no free lunch: Pay for the mandates that you have created and passed the price tag onto the local property taxpayer.”

Ney said that a new funding mechanism proposed but not yet implemented could mean as much as $1.4 million more for his school district at a time when SAD 64 is near the bottom of the list for expenditures per pupil.

But even as the educators discussed their concerns and the salient points of the issue, some municipal support for 1A was fading. Municipalities, such as Bangor, that are out opposed to the Maine Municipal Association’s measure met in Augusta to support measure 1B.

Advocates of 1B, such as campaign manager Larry Benoit and Sue Bell, the former education policy adviser for Gov. Angus King, said budget cuts already made to offset a $1.2 billion deficit have little to nowhere to go, and the only option is to increase taxes to come up with the $246 million needed in the first year of the biennium.

Phasing in the increase in the state’s share of general purpose aid coincides with projections that Maine will have that money available without needing to tap into new taxes or cutting programs and services, said Bell, a former legislator who served on the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. The competing measure 1B also contains property tax relief elements.