AUGUSTA – The state may be planning to pump a quarter of a billion dollars more into education over the next two years, but a lot of school departments will still end up with a smaller piece of the pie.

That became evident when the Department of Education released its projected Essential Programs and Services (EPS) allocations for the next two school years on Wednesday.

While the state subsidies will be a boon to some districts, others will see a drop in state aid.

“I cannot understand why anybody, under these circumstances, is getting less money than they got last year,” said an upset SAD 34 Superintendent Bob Young. “I can’t imagine the state putting more money into the system, and yet you come out with losers.”

Under the EPS formula, Young’s Belfast-based, six-community district will receive $717,065 less in state aid than it received last year. That is the largest loss of any district in the state. Young said he intended to press his local legislative delegation to work to find a way to correct the situation.

“I don’t know how a system our size can absorb a loss like that,” said Young.

Even more perplexing to Young is the fact that two years from now the state intends to increase the district’s subsidy by $1.3 million under the EPS formula.

“What are we supposed to do? Fire people this year and then hire them all back the next year?”

The opposite is true in Bangor, whose school department will receive an additional $2,040,894 from the state next year and another $2,230,970 in 2006-07. Attempts Wednesday to reach Bangor school superintendent Robert Ervin for his reaction to the proposed $4.2 million windfall were unsuccessful.

Attempts were also unsuccessful to reach Dale Douglas, director of the Maine School Management Association, the administrative arm of the Maine School Boards Association and the Maine School Superintendents Association.

Under the previous funding system, state subsidies were based on how much districts spent on education two years earlier.

The EPS allocations are based on what the department has determined should be spent to provide students with the programs and services they need for a quality education. No district will receive a state subsidy for any spending beyond 8.26 mills of the local property valuation as set by the state.

“The fairness in all of this is that all municipalities will be limited by that 8.26 mill rate,” department spokesman James Rier said Wednesday. “This is a much more balanced amount. It doesn’t matter if I live in Machias or Augusta, I will still pay 8.26 as my local share.”

All told, the department plans to spend about $824 million in the coming school year (2005-2006) and $892 million on educational subsidies in the 2006-07 school year.

Whereas the state is currently providing about 43 percent of the total cost of education, it will have lifted its share to 50 percent by the end of the two-year budget cycle.

Voters last June ordered the state to contribute 55 percent of education costs. Rather than take on that commitment overnight, the Baldacci administration is attempting to phase in the subsidy upgrade over a four-year period.

Legislation to implement the administration’s plan is currently being debated.

All schools are required to have certain Essential Programs and Services in place that are necessary to achieve academic standards determined by Maine Learning Results.

The department adopted a formula designed to determine how much each individual school department needs to spend on its K-12 programs to meet those goals. The estimates released on Wednesday are based on that formula.

The funding levels are aimed at expanding educational opportunities statewide. Many districts already spend more than the state requires, while others spend less.

The goal of the program is to have a set of standards that can be measured statewide while reducing the local cost of implementing them.

“EPS was designed to bring more equitable opportunity for pupils so that it doesn’t depend on where you live as to the educational opportunity you receive,” said Rier. “Ultimately state support and local support will be more focused providing those services. Some may think it is a way of controlling costs. I would like to think it is a way of supporting educational opportunity.”

Superintendent Young said he was in favor of controlling costs as well. But he said the price of bearing those costs should not be placed on the backs of the smaller, rural school districts.

He said school districts in the southern part of the state would receive large increases in state aid under EPS, while those in the north and Down East would receive much less.

“I can’t imagine how you could think that formula was equitable when the wealthy communities are getting more and places like us and SAD 3, [in western Waldo County] which is all farms, are getting less,” said Young. “It’s difficult to understand how areas that have a much larger tax base and spend more per pupil can get more money from the state.”