As he has done biennially as commissioner of education, Duke Albanese has proposed a budget for the state’s share of K-12 education with an increase that resides slightly closer to optimism than what many lawmakers might prefer. It is the right way to lean, especially given the capitol talk of flat funding education next year. Properly, in meeting a request to offer two models for funding, the commissioner emphasized the need for Maine to stick with its plans for the Essential Programs and Services model.

Mr. Albanese has suggested an increase of 2.7 percent, nearly $20 million, plus a $3 million cushion. The cushion has dropped more slowly than it should have over the years, taking money that would otherwise have been cranked through the formula, but considering last year’s rise in property valuations, this would have been a difficult time to eliminate it. The department had proposed a 4 percent increase last September, but with its critics suggesting zero, the 2.7 percent is suddenly appealing.

The commissioner reports that he based this increase on the inflation rate within the Consumer Price Index, which measures the rise of items like food, clothing and transportation in certain urban areas and is related to school costs only indirectly. It is, however, convenient that the CPI produces a figure the Legislature could afford to fund. Alternatively, the commissioner suggests the GPA increase could be tied to the expected increase in the General Fund, at 2.55 percent. Whichever.

For Maine to stay on track to meet the funding demands under Essential Programs and Services by the original target date of 2008, it needed annual budget increases of 6 percent; Maine isn’t going to make it on this proposal, and even the new date of 2010 will require a serious commitment by the Baldacci administration. But for the first time, the proposed education budget was actually two budgets – the traditional style of funding and the option of beginning the Essential Programs model. The state School Board recommends the latter, which is the better choice because it focuses more on adequacy, as defined by the demands of Learning Results, rather than two-year-old costs. This model will help those schools with the greatest funding shortages, even though at present it raises only about 85 percent of the required state share.

The department’s reasonable goal is to phase in this funding model, bringing the state to its full funding commitment over the next several years. The 2.7 percent increase represents a re-treat from this goal but not a rout, an attempt to keep from falling further behind in bad times, making the chance of catching up in better times all but impossible. Maine just lived through that; nobody – lawmakers, school officials, students, property taxpayers – should want to experience it again.