[Local-Maine-Schools] What to say to legislators?

[Dick Atlee]

I understand the importance of weighing in with the committee members, 
but it isn't clear to me what we should be weighing in with.

There seems to be an antipathy (at least from the pro-Governor's-plan 
forces) to any attempt to do "more studies" -- the same know-nothing 
impatient language that characterized the push for TABOR.  Yet it seems 
clear from Gordon Donaldson's report*, and the inconsistencies observed 
at today's hearing in how technology funds are categorized, that there 
isn't any way to say *at this time* in what kind of scenarios real 
savings can be realized.  And such scenarios can't be constructed until 
"more studies" are done.

So it seems to me -- and please correct me if and where I'm wrong -- 
that, at the current level of data-knowledge of Maine school financial 
realities, any attempt to develop for the legislature a concrete 
proposal, or even an apply-able philosophical position, amounts to 
talking through our hats.  If this is true, and yet the legislature 
really does have to come up with $250M/3 savings in this budget in the 
absence of the Gov's plan, what are we in a position to tell them?

Dick

* A key element in Dr. Donaldson's report was the fact that, although we 
spend $65 more per student on admin costs than the national average, we 
spend $290 less on support services.  This led him to surmise that a lot 
of support services are being handled by admin people.  But when I asked 
him if he knew exactly what those services might be (which would make 
his argument much more powerful), he said he didn't know, and that that 
was exactly why we need "more studies" (my words, not his).