Veto a possibility for school bill Baldacci’s new budget package addresses many consolidation concerns

AUGUSTA – As part of his new $95 million budget change package, Gov. John Baldacci is setting the stage for a possible veto of a school system consolidation bill pending in the Legislature.

The bill was originally introduced as a relatively modest effort to smooth out provisions of last session’s sweeping consolidation legislation that continued to trouble various parties.

One aim, as recounted by the Maine Municipal Association, was to address mandatory cost-sharing formulas that would require some towns to pay substantially more for education.

The Education Committee endorsed the measure 10-3 after adding a couple of notable provisions including a one-year delay from 2008 to 2009 of a mandatory school budget “validation” referendum process.

More changes were added when the measure reached the Senate.

One would authorize reorganization planning committees to build new school systems as school unions rather than school districts.

According to the MMA analysis, a regional school unit is similar to existing school administrative districts, while a regional school union would be patterned after the existing school union model in which individual schools are governed locally and share a single superintendent and superintendent’s staff.

The governor’s new package of budget adjustments carries language addressing an array of school system consolidation issues “including clarification of budget procedures, duties and responsibilities, transition procedures, debt service obligations, school closure, cost sharing and audit requirements,” according to a Baldacci administration summary.

Asked why such language was needed in the budget change package, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said Wednesday it might be needed “depending what happens with [LD] 1932,” the consolidation legislation now pending in the House.

Asked if that bill in its amended form would be subject to a gubernatorial veto, Gendron replied, “potentially, yes.”