[Local-Maine-Schools] March 16: notes fromEducationCommitteesession

[John March]

"One member of Ed. Com. said . . . . that many of its signers were willing
to support other options but had not become familiar with them in time to
think about them prior to issuing their report."

Well, whose fault is that?

And what sort of excuse is that?




-----Original Message-----
From: local-maine-schools-bounces at lists.svaha.com
[mailto:local-maine-schools-bounces at lists.svaha.com] On Behalf Of Jill
Goldthwait
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 12:14 PM
To: 'Brian Hubbell'; 'Paul Murphy'
Cc: 'Local Maine Schools List'
Subject: Re: [Local-Maine-Schools] March 16: notes
fromEducationCommitteesession

You all have developed some serious expertise in the consolidation subject
and Augusta in general, and I have little to add to your considerable
efforts.  Wondered if you are aware that the subcommittee of Appropriations
dealing with the school plans met yesterday afternoon.  They had plans to
meet some more, don't know what weather might be doing to Augusta schedules,
but they can be found by clicking on the "Special" link on the legislative
audio site.  They meet in the Legis. Council Room and it was fully mic'ed
and nicely audible.  Some of the same folks were moving between the Ed. Com
and the Approps subcom., probably giving the same presentations.  One member
of Ed. Com. said their majority report had been significantly
mis-represented by the media, and that many of its signers were willing to
support other options but had not become familiar with them in time to think
about them prior to issuing their report.

It is not customary to have an issue this big being treated by several
different venues, and I suspect mass confusion will continue to reign but
the narrow neck of the funnel is now Appropriations, and in answer to the
question of where to put effort, the bulk of it would have to go there.
Approp's particular filter is budget balancing, not education, though they
are making a valiant effort to look at the policy side.

Re health insurance, one possible route to exploring lower costs, which
would be to bid a plan, is shut off by the MEA's refusal to release their
utilization data, hence no other potential providers will bid on coverage.
I submitted a bill in the mid-90's to require the release of the data, it
did not pass.
	Jill G.

-----Original Message-----
From: local-maine-schools-bounces at lists.svaha.com
[mailto:local-maine-schools-bounces at lists.svaha.com]On Behalf Of Brian
Hubbell
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 6:57 PM
To: Paul Murphy
Cc: Local Maine Schools List
Subject: Re: [Local-Maine-Schools] March 16: notes from
EducationCommitteesession


Paul,

Hard to tell from just an intermittent audio feed, but hard as it may
be for one to believe, it seemed that Mr Rier may well never have
looked past that first layer of  his spreadsheets and into health care
premiums in particular and their relative rate of increase as a major
contributing component to increasing overall costs.

It truly was right at that moment that Dr Silvernail entered the
committee room and was warmly entreated by the Committee members to
offer his insights on the subject.  It was very frustrating not to be
able to hear his response -- I nearly slapped my laptop in irritation
when I realized he wasn't being mic'ed.  Let's give him the benefit of
the doubt on this one, even though, in these hearings at least, he
seems to like his numbers a lot more in the aggregate than in detail.

His answers would have been all the more interesting as I learned
afterward from our superintendent that Silvernail was returning from
Augusta directly from a morning visit to our high school which he's
studying with interest for our pioneering commitment to one-on-one
laptops -- an expense and commitment, of course, not currently dreamed
of under EPS.

Funny -- as the DOE in relatively recent memory seemed badly to want
us to go ahead with this program and then, once we started, left us
stranded with it.  And now, the Governor has proposed to cut our
spending so he can afford to pay us to embark on the same program
fresh again.

I expect that will all be covered in Silvernail's review.

--Brian

-------------------

On 3/16/07, Paul Murphy <pgmurphy607 at adelphia.net> wrote:
> I'm afraid my contribution to the population has been made and try as I
will
> my income is what it is...sorry.
>
> Brian I wasn't clear on this, did the committee ever get to increases in
> health care premiums as a contributing factor? I'm incredulous that it
could
> be missed, particularly by Rier, unless of course he was being
> disingenuous...nah...
>
> P
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