CONSOLIDATION CONFUSION

LD 1932 began as a necessary and quick fix to the school administration consolidation law passed last year. The bill aimed to remove hurdles to school district mergers, not to so water down the law that the goals of saving money and improving classroom instruction were lost.

But that is what has happened and why lawmakers need to step back and clean up LD 1932 before they can move forward. A conference committee requested by the Senate offers an opportunity to get the bill back on track. This is needed so school districts can move forward with their consolidation efforts, many of which have been put on hold pending action in Augusta.

LD 1932, which was approved by a 10-3 vote by the Education Committee in January, would allow local cost-sharing agreements, retain minimum subsidies for districts that reorganize, and eliminate a minimum subsidy provision. This eases concerns voiced by many districts as they contemplated consolidation.

After the bill left committee, things got complicated.

The Senate added an amendment to allow school union-type governance. This system, where many towns share a superintendent but have separate school boards, is the type of inefficiency that the law was meant to reduce.

Educational spending varies widely from district to district, based largely on the amount of taxable property in each town. School union proponents have circulated figures purported to show that school unions cost the state very little. The towns they have chosen – Cranberry Isles, Westmanland and Mount Desert – for example, don’t get a lot of money from the state, but that is because their property valuation far exceeds the state average, not necessarily because they are efficient.

Westmanland, part of Union 122 in Aroostook County, received about $800 per student in state subsidy in 2006-07. Its per pupil valuation is seven times the state average. In the same union, New Sweden, where the per student valuation is about twice the state average, got more than $10,000 per student from the state that year.

The House also has amended LD 1932 to add an exemption to minimum district requirements for districts with fewer than 50 residents per square mile. The Senate had rejected a similar waiver option for districts with fewer than 100 residents per square mile.

The differences between the House and Senate version led to the current logjam and the threat of a veto from Gov. John Baldacci. He has included the straightforward fixes at the heart of LD 1932 in his supplemental budget proposal in case the bill is not passed.

Senate Minority Leader Carol Weston is right that rewriting LD 1932 through floor amendments is the wrong approach. “Most of this should have been handled in committee,” she said.

Returning to what the committee did handle, namely the version of LD 1932 approved by the Education Committee, is a simple solution that will allow school districts to move forward with their consolidation efforts.