Tax reform for rural Maine, too

The institutions of rural Maine are under attack by state government. First there was the effort to force all schools into mega-districts and outlaw school unions. Then the trial balloon aimed at local hospitals. Now there is the new school funding formula, embedded in the “tax reform package” which shifts support away from rural Maine to southern suburban Maine and to a lesser extent Maine’s cities.

The new formula is called Essential Programs and Services (EPS) and its promise is to base state funding on what is needed to have a good school. As a concept, it is very difficult to argue with, but the glib description glosses over the very subjective decisions which drive its design. For example, property to build a school in a city or a rich suburb costs more than in the more rural parts of the state. Do you recognize that as a necessary cost? What about high rural transportation costs, or the need for smaller schools in a rural area?

The way the proposed EPS formula answers those questions leaves rural Maine’s schools unviable, even in the context of overall state funding increasing by tens of millions of dollars. If the bill goes through as drafted, the wealthy suburban Cumberland school system will have an increase in school aid of 33 percent, almost $2 millions. Cities like Portland and Bangor come in around the middle at about a 17 percent increase. However, rural taxpayers will see major decreases in their school aid from the state.

Eastport will see a reduction in its school aid of 22 percent, a loss of about $270,000. SAD 3, educating children from the rural communities in western Waldo County, will see a reduction of more than $342,000. Deer Isle-Stonington will lose almost $200,000. And they call this tax relief. How did this happen?

This began with the Maine Municipal Association advancing the referendum to increase funding under the old formula to 55 percent, and to do it immediately. The administration and the Legislature countered with an alternative idea: to change funding to the EPS formula and phase it in. That alternative was rejected by the voters in November 2003. So in the spring of 2004 the Legislature went ahead and enacted EPS anyway. Then in June, the people passed the MMA proposal, so now the Legislature is being asked to support a proposal to undo what the voters did in June and take us back to a phase-in of EPS, and in the process devastate schools in rural Maine.

The irony is that many states have initiatives to save their rural institutions, while Maine rushes headlong to kill them. This is not to deny that rural Maine has real problems. In much of rural Maine population is declining and so is school population. But if we just have the money follow the students and do nothing else the local rural schools will close and no more young families will choose to live in small towns. The schools in the countryside will fall down and we’ll build a lot of new ones in Cumberland. If becoming like southern Connecticut is your idea of paradise, then the current state policies fit you to a tee.

Here is an alternative idea. Pass the tax reform bill with a statewide dollar figure for the increase in school aid, but leave it to the Legislature to read – just the formula so that it helps rural taxpayers as well as those in the cities and wealthy suburbs. Then let’s really develop statewide policies that will save rural Maine. Let’s begin with the Bangor Daily News, the best voice for rural Maine, hosting a forum on these pages. People from a variety of backgrounds would be asked to contribute to the discussion. There are good ideas out there among the people, let’s explore them.

Our challenge is twofold: We must develop strategies which can reverse the decline of rural communities, and we must convince people from suburban Maine that they have something at stake in preserving this part of Maine. If we have the will, it can be done. There are healthy parts of our agricultural and rural economy, we can help them prosper. There are more and more jobs in our national economy which follow the skilled worker, we can attract them to rural Maine if we maintain good local schools. The initiative to attract affluent retirees to Maine is working and it can benefit rural Maine with its low-cost housing and real community life, but to do it we’ll need our rural hospitals.

To succeed, Maine will have to act as if we are one community and the place to start is for legislators from urban and suburban Maine refusing to support “tax reform” which benefits them at the expense of their country cousins.

This commentary was written by Reps. Barbara E. Merrill, D-Appleton, and David Trahan, R-Waldoboro.