Gov. John Baldacci and his sycophantic Legislature have dropped an education atomic bomb on Maine’s few remaining vestiges of “local control.” If approved in referendum, control will be vested in regional school administrative units. In addition to loss of local administrative control and possible impairment of educational quality there are taxation issues for municipal officials and voters to consider.

In her letter of Aug. 25-26, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron briefly refers to the school funding distribution formula: “which does not change under the new law.” She tries to defuse any potential apprehension about state funding distribution, pointing out that under the new law no municipality will have to pay more than its proportional per-pupil share of total costs in the new RSU. Well and good. A kind of floating tax cap.

What the commissioner doesn’t say is more important. She does not mention that the membership of higher per-pupil valuation municipalities in new RSUs raises the average per-pupil value of such RSUs compared to other RSUs. As a consequence high valuation RSUs will receive less state funding. Towns and cities having high per-pupil valuations should be joined with comparable towns and cities. Otherwise the low-valuation towns in the RSU are penalized just by being in it. Voters should demand unequivocal answers on this point before casting their referendum ballots on Jan. 15, 2008, June 10, 2008, or Nov. 4, 2008. These dates are the only opportunities for voters to kill this public school monstrosity thrust upon us by the governor, his education commissioner and Legislature.

Carle G. Gray

Sullivan