Maine News Updates

We've heard the claim repeated throughout this fall battle over Question 3: Repealing Maine's school district consolidation law will cost taxpayers more than $30 million each year.

The No on 3 campaign, which is seeking to uphold the consolidation law, has cited the figure in both its television ads (here and here). Maine State Chamber of Commerce President and No on 3 spokesman Dana Connors cited it recently in a Bangor Daily News op ed. The Legislature's Office of Fiscal and Program Review, in a fiscal impact statement, estimated the repeal's cost to the state at $38.2 million during the 2010-11 academic year. To local taxpayers, the statement estimates a cost of $31.3 million.

Both sides acknowledge that the cost of repeal cited in the fiscal impact statement is not the result of rolling back the savings realized by school district mergers. It's the reversal of a series of state education subsidy cuts that were passed in June 2007 as part of the school district consolidation law.

The Maine Coalition to Save Schools, the group leading the charge to repeal the district consolidation law, thought it had the issue resolved. Sen. David Trahan, R-Waldoboro, announced he'd sponsor legislative language to keep those cuts in place even if a consolidation repeal is successful. After all, the state can't afford to reinstate the money as it faces a revenue shortfall of at least $230 million. Keeping the cuts legally in place would eliminate the supposed cost of repealing consolidation.

But opponents of the consolidation repeal have continued to cite the $30 million figure. So I asked David Connerty-Marin, spokesman for Education Commissioner Susan Gendron, what exactly is behind that argument's survival.

It's clear Maine can't afford to reinstate the cut subsidy this year, and probably not for the next few years, he said. That means the cost of consolidation's repeal to the state will be nothing for at least a couple years. (In fact, Drummond Woodsum lawyer Richard Spencer said the repeal, if successful, would effectively remain "inoperative" under the Maine constitution until February since the state couldn't afford to implement it.)

Still, as it stands now, passing the consolidation repeal will legally reinstate the subsidy cuts, and reinstating those cuts is a permanent change to Maine's education funding formula. While Trahan has introduced a proposal to keep the cuts in place, Connerty-Marin noted there's no assurance the proposal would pass. And that's why the $30 million repeal cost argument is self-sustaining.

"You are going back to the higher amounts for those administrative functions. What you're saying is, here's your benchmark. Your benchmark is higher again," Connerty-Marin said. "What is there then to encourage any kind of efficiency or streamlining in those categories? There'd be no reason not to spend those higher amounts."

The major impact could be at the local level, he said.

"There is this cost to the state, (but) the Legislature can say, we simply won't pay that," Connerty-Marin said. "On the local side, there would be an even less clear way out."

That's because before school districts can receive state education subsidy, they have to put up local property tax dollars as a match. That's the source of the $31.3 million cost to local taxpayers, from which Connerty-Marin says there wouldn't be a clear escape.