[Local-Maine-Schools] Bedeviling details: Appropriations subcommittee 4/09

[Brian Hubbell]

Not too much progress made this morning.

The Appropriation Committee's subcommittee on Education met again this
morning at 8:00 for an hour to try to resolve what happens to the
current teachers' contracts when teachers become employees of the new
regional districts and their current employers are dissolved.

Mark Gray from the MEA proposed some language which the subcommittee
fairly plainly took as over-reaching.  Beyond just conveying the
existing contracts to the new regional districts, Gray also suggested
some substantial alterations regarding a mechanism of binding
arbitration to consolidate teachers' associations if the individual
pre-existing associations wouldn't voluntarily combine.

While confirming that everyone wants to assure teachers of some
comfortable continuity, the subcommittee expressed disappointment that
Gray hadn't worked this out beforehand in collaboration with Dick
Spenser and the MSMA, making it plain that they were not interested in
creating any new labor laws, but that they were instead assuming that
most, if not all, the new structure should be readily accommodated
under existing laws.

The subcommittee then moved back to where they left off on Friday
regarding the process for regional budget approvals and referenda.
Senator Turner presented his recommendations for a written referendum,
but still was unable to sway the reservations of the other three
subcommittee members.

They all seem to agree on the importance and necessity of
"transparency" through providing state-wide comparisons to voters in
all the budget categories and having them standardized relating to
EPS.  However they stop short of Senator Turner's more hard-line
efforts at explicitly mandating a referendum in which voters choose
between spending in excess of EPS or taking the overage as a direct
reduction in mil rate.

The subcommittee still intends to report to the full Appropriations
Committee at 1:00PM
[audio link: http://janus.state.me.us/legis/audio/approps_cmte.html]

But obviously, they are not anywhere near presenting final language.
Instead, what they will present will be a detailed outline based on
what Representative Cain wrote and circulated among them this weekend.

Perhaps one of our friends in Augusta can snag us a copy of this.