[Local-Maine-Schools] Question about Reality Check

[Phil Worden]

Brian:
  Yes, I understand this part of it and am totally opposed to the consolidation scheme.  I was the chairman of SAD #4 (Guilford, Abbot, Sangerville, Parkman, Cambridge and Wellington) for 5 years in the 1980s and know how SADs work.  We went through the very scenario you raise with the Town of Wellington's school.  My question was specific to how the funding formula in the consolidation scheme applies to MDI, especially the amount paid by the Town of Mount Desert.  I read the Reality Check as saying our special hybrid funding formula for the high school would be lost in the consolidation scheme, which means the "subsidy" from Mount Desert would end, thereby raising the share of Bar Harbor (and presumably Tremont and the other the towns).  But it also says that Mount Desert's share would rise by $1.2 million and that the "surplus" is shared by the other members of the RSU.  I'm trying to reconcile these statements.  The reality check reads as though all towns will pay more and the budget will still have to be cut even more than the 5% the bill requires.  If true, this is a powerful point that I want to use.  But I don't need it; in my view, the scheme still fails just on the educational issues alone.  Although I don't understand the economics, my suspicion is that the bill wipes out our current formula but it's very complex to figure out how the new system will work; for example: Mount Desert might still pay more but the amount and ramifications would be different than the way it is now.  I appreciate all the work the group put into this and don't mean to raise any "last minute" complaints.  It's outrageous that the group had only a day to put out a position paper on such a complex issue; it's inspiring that they were able to get to us such a quality document in such a short time.  I intend to get a letter to Hannah Pingree this weekend but I'm not sure whether to include the funding formula analysis in the Reality Check because I'm not sure it holds up.  I am hoping that someone can de-msytify the formula for me so I can argue that every town's share goes up but school spending goes down.  Phil 




 ------------Original Message------------
From: "Brian Hubbell" <sparkflashgap at gmail.com>
To: "Phil Worden" <pworden at adelphia.net>
Cc: "Local Maine Schools List" <local-maine-schools at lists.svaha.com>
Date: Sat, Jun-2-2007 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Local-Maine-Schools] Question about Reality Check

Phil,

Under an enrollment-based SAD-type government for Union 98, the
destabilizing dynamic for Tremont begins with the power shift toward
Bar Harbor with its significantly higher population.  Under the
present proposal, Bar Harbor assumes nearly 40% of the voting power.

Then, picture a district-wide budget referendum at which voters are
spooked by the "rock vs. apple-pie" override language and vote down
expenses over the EPS limits.

The unapproved budget returns to the regional district board.  This
board, dominated by Bar Harbor, no matter how enlightened and
altruistic as a whole, now has to figure how to drastically reduce
spending across all its schools.

No matter that everyone is equally under the gun, on a board where Bar
Harbor has the majority influence, the only place to make politically
tolerable cuts will be at the schools with lower enrollments and
higher per-pupil costs.  These are the schools in the other towns, not
Bar Harbor's.

While a district board may not have the authority to close a school
outright, they surely can starve a school out of existence through
uniformity of budgets.

Under the new school order, that is what Tremont would be looking at
school governance: less authority and less school in exchange for an
insignificant change in tax dollars.  It is easy to see how
inter-municipality political warfare follows.

--Brian
mdischools.net
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On 6/2/07, Phil Worden <pworden at adelphia.net> wrote:
> I'm hoping to write a letter to Hannah Pingree opposing the plan from a Tremont perspective but I'm not sure I understand the plan accurately.  In Reality Check under "Cost Allocation Solely By Student Population" it explains that we will lose the subsidy we get from rich summer people's property in Mount Desert and it says that this will result in Bar Harbor's share of costs rising by $880,000.  In the next section about the 2 mil minimum it says that Mount Desert's share will go up by "an extra $1.2 million, also resulting in budget cuts beyond even those required by the bill."  It says that the "surplus [is] shared among the other members of the RSU."  How can it be that both Mount Desert's costs and Bar Harbor's costs go up?  And if that is true so an extra $2 million ($1.2 from Mt Desert and $800 K from BH) goes into the school budget, why would that extra $2 million require budget cuts beyond those mandated in the bill?  Does the State's share go down by even more?  Has anyone crunched the numbers for Tremont?  I grasp the educational and local control issues but I don't feel I understand the economics yet.  I'm hoping someone out there who understands this stuff better than I do will have the patience to explain it to me.  Thanks for any help I can get.  Phil Worden
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