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Maine’s School

Superintendent Points out Law’s shortcomings, Seeks better ways to cut costs

By: David Deschesne

Editor/Publisher, Fort Fairfield Journal, January 16, 2008, p. 1

Often called “Baldacci's Legacy,” the Maine School Consolidation law is starting to cause more trouble than it is worth. What's worse, it's likely to actually cost more, once fully implemented, than if schools were left alone to run as they had been.

“After the Palesky referendum and Taxpayer Bill of Rights both failed, members of the State Chamber of Commerce, State Teacher’s Association and Maine Municipal Association got together and decided to come up with a plan to cut costs voluntarily, before a successful tax-cutting referendum took place,” said Frank Keenan, Superintendent of Easton’s School system. “They submitted their plan to the Education Committee of the Legislature. The Education Committee then passed much of this plan but made the collaboration between districts mandatory with targeted savings amounts for each school district, a timeline, and financial penalties if the savings weren’t found. The education bill mandated that each region search for duplication of services in administration and find ways to eliminate the duplications. It also called for a sharing of resources to expand opportunities for students.”

The Education Bill was sent to the Appropriations Committee, who looked at it for one day, figured it wouldn't work and came up with their own plan of forced consolidation.

Prior to the coercive law, school systems such as Fort Fairfield were already seeking ways to cut costs and share services. Jim Everett, Plant Manager for S.A.D. #20's schools recently undertook a vigorous energy system upgrade that changed most of its lighting to energy efficient systems - complete with a proximity detector circuit to automatically shut of the gym lights after a couple of minutes of not sensing movement and turn on when movement is sensed - similar to a homeowner's outside infrared detection lighting. Everett has received statewide recognition for his efforts. Fort Fairfield also utilizes the services of Caribou's cafeteria manager, rather than hire one of their own and also shares a speech therapist with Limestone.

Presque Isle's superintendent also acts as Superintendent for Ashland schools. “Under the new consolidation plan, if Presque Isle and Ashland were to merge, it would end up costing them more than their current cost of education once all the various labor contracts are merged into one,” said Keenan.

The original legislation required the new Regional School Units (RSU) to contain a minimum of 2,500 students - a near impossibility in sparsely populated Aroostook County, so legislation was enacted to allow for a 1,200 student minimum in areas of sparse population.

According to Keenan, when the school districts assigned to RSU #3 (along with SAD #20) submitted their proposals to the Education Commissioner, Susan Gendron, they were turned down because none of their proposals met the minimum requirement of 2,500 students - this despite the law allowing for 1,200.

“After the commissioner denied all of our notices of intent, one district (SAD #20) fell away from our original proposed group and began talking with others about merging,” said Keenan. “The commissioner later agreed to allow for districts with less than 2,500 but more than 1,200 student minimum, but because of the loss of SAD #20 as a potential partner, Easton was left without enough school districts available to reach 1,200 students.”

Another feature of the new RSU law is cost shifting. “Cost shifting involves a rather complicated formula that takes into consideration the total amount a school district currently spends, its student level and property valuations,” explained Keenan. “Costs aren't eliminated, rather they are shifted to other communities.” It is conceivable that, depending on the way the numbers work out, some communities could have the education costs of other communities in the new RSU shifted to them by the funding formula.

One of the primary reasons for the school consolidation law was to reduce administration and staff - that is, at the Superintendent level - by reducing the number of superintendents and their secretaries statewide.

“They claimed a savings of $240 million statewide,” said Keenan. “But if you cut every superintendent in the state, you'd only save around $14 million.”

According to Keenan, if the proposed RSU #3 had been formed and three of the four Superintendents, their staffs and office costs had been eliminated; there would be an initial one-time cost savings of over three hundred thousand dollars. “However,” Keenan goes on to say, “at the same time, when labor contracts expired and were renegotiated, teachers and other labor groups in the new RSU #3 whose salaries/benefits in their old districts were much lower than colleagues from higher paying districts would want their salaries/benefits raised to match that of the highest paying district in RSU #3. This is easy to understand since they would now all be part of RSU #3 and expect to be treated the same. In RSU #3, this would mean salary increases from $3,000 to $12,000 a year for teachers. As a result of all labor contracts being renegotiated, there would be over one million dollars in new costs for RSU #3 in salaries/benefits. These costs would not be one-time, but ongoing.”

Keenan fears, as many on the RSU Regional Planning Committees, that the upward drive of renegotiated salaries and the increasing costs inherent in running a school, such as fuel oil, busses, etc., could potentially cause some schools to close.

“The RSU will be comprised of voting members from all the communities it serves, with votes proportional to the population of each community. It is conceivable that, in the future, Board Members from one community would be forced to vote to close another community's schools and that could lead to a lot of hard feelings.”

There is currently a petition drive to place a referendum on the November ballot to rescind the school consolidation law.