[Local-Maine-Schools] Education Committee: January 2, 2008

[Paul Murphy]

Too bad they didn't take Mills' approach prior to passing this
legislation....


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Hubbell" <sparkflashgap at gmail.com>
To: <local-maine-schools at mainetalk.org>; "MDI RPC" <rpc at u98.k12.me.us>
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 6:11 PM
Subject: [Local-Maine-Schools] Education Committee: January 2, 2008


Summary of Legislature's Education Committee meeting
Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Just before 4:00PM, after a weather-delayed 1:00PM opening of the
legislature's second session, the Education Committee met to discuss
its work plan for this season.

Present were: Reps Strang-Burgess, Farrington, Harlow, Finch, Norton,
Edgecomb, McFadden, and Senators Bowman and Mills.  Also present was
the Committee's analyst, Phil McCarthy and Committee Clerk Dave
DesJardins, and Commissioner Gendron. Apparently absent were Senator
Mitchell and Representative Muse.

Phil McCarthy presented the Committee's tentative schedule, set as
follows to meet the deadline set by the legislative leaders.

Thursday, January 3 at 1:00PM:
Commissioner Gendron will report to the Committee on reorganization
progress.  The Commissioner will present maps showing the proposed
districts, as well as lists of complying and non-complying districts.
She will present summaries of what Department assistance the RPC's
have asked for and also a summary of the impediments or barriers that
the RPC's have identified.

Also, the Committee will revisit some of the content on LD 1932 (for
more explanation of that, see further below)

Friday, January 4 at 9:00AM
The Committee will conduct a "public forum" for legislators to present
their individual requests for alterations to the consolidation law.
There are apparently 45 legislators who submitted up to as many as
five legislative requests each before last fall's cloture.
Legislators, in alphabetical order, will be given five minutes each to
summarize succinctly the intent of their proposals.  After each
presentation, the Committee may ask questions of the presenter.  This
is expected to take all day.  Tomorrow morning, Phil McCarthy will
notify legislators about how this will work.

Tuesday-Friday, January 8-11
The Committee will meet in work session for these four days to decide
what to include (as the present law authorizes them) in their own bill
to modify the consolidation law.  At the end of this week, the
Committee hopes "to be in a posture to report out a bill".

Friday, January 18
The Committee will vote on what to include in its bill.  After this
vote, committee staff will work with OPLA to draft the bill.

By Friday, January 25
The bill language should be printed and notice of a public hearing on
the bill (a specific request to the Committee that was made by
legislative leadership) should be published.

February 6
Proposed date for Public Hearing on the Committee's bill. This hearing
is likely to be held "off-campus" at a larger facility, probably the
Augusta Civic Center.  After this, the Committee will reconvene to
consider any additional amendments resulting from the public hearing.

Friday, February 8
The Committee will vote by this date on any amendments so that a final
bill can be reported out by Friday, February 15, which is the deadline
given them by legislative leadership. Senator Bowman added that if the
Committee doesn't meet that deadline they will continue working the
following week, which is otherwise school vacation week.


In response to the discussion on the Committee's work session
schedule, Senator Mills said that he was concerned that in certain
parts of the state there was already sufficient hostility that RPC may
be setting up districts that make no sense or building plans that,
while they may meet the requirement of the law, they do not expect to
promote or that they do not expect to be approved by the voters.

Mills suggests that the Committee ought to consider inviting groups
regionally to meet – relatively informally – with the Committee so the
Committee can learn first hand what the problems are.  While saying
this might be a route toward regional concessions, Mills, who said
that in the original law he would have preferred incentives to
penalties and so finds the current coercive situation "awkward", added
that he does not support having this be a way "to erode" the law but
he believes that, at the very least, this would be "good politics."

Mills added that he always thought that largest barriers were large
differential in salary scales.  He would like to hear from school
management people and contract negotiators about how this might be
fixed.

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

Somewhat later, Senator Mills added that, re LD 1932, he was not happy
with his vote supporting it.  This change of position came about when
he read the final language and discovered that not only was the budget
referendum requirement removed for this year's budget approvals, but
also (as perhaps an unintended consequence, the requirement for the
new 11-point budget format as well.  Mills says that he believes there
was strong support originally among many legislators in the Republican
caucus for both aspects.

Representative Strang-Burgess supported Mills on the matter of budget
format, but said she still favored eliminating the new referendum
requirement for this year, as she said that it needs to be preceded by
a "huge educational campaign" by school board members who are
presently tied up with their RPCs.

Rep Harlow suggested leaving this up to the towns to decide.

Senator Bowman asked to have this added to the Committee's agenda for
tomorrow.

At 5:07, the Committee adjourned.  They are schedule to reconvene
tomorrow, Thursday, January 3, at 1:00PM

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