[Local-Maine-Schools] January 10: report from MDI in Augusta

[Brian Hubbell]

At the invitation of our local legislators, yesterday a delegation
from the Mount Desert Island RPC traveled to Augusta to meet with
Commissioner Gendron.  This meeting was originally suggested last
November by the RPC in the cover letter that accompanied our plan
submission in the case the Commissioner found that our plan required
any clarification.

As the Commissioner instead turned down our plan on the basis of its
governance structure, the context for the meeting was somewhat
changed.  Nevertheless, I think all parties approached this meeting
with a sincere and hopeful interest in finding a way to move Mount
Desert Island's concept forward successfully.

Plainly, MDI's model now is a central point in any discussion about
either clarifying the authorities of local school committees within
new RSUs that the law currently allows or liberalizing the law to
allow any form of school unions.

This is because MDI has convincingly presented itself as a coherent,
high-performing regional system of school government which already
exhibits many of the functional characteristics that advocates of
state-wide reorganization hope to achieve such as centralized
administration, uniform curriculum, and common salary scales -- all
achieved outside of State duress.

But, at the same time, MDI steadfastly insists that this performance,
coherence and cooperation depends deeply upon (and results essentially
from) the autonomy of its local elementary school boards and the
involved local oversight of its municipalities.

While the Commissioner seems willing to allow that this system
functions effectively on MDI, approving it as a general model for RSUs
statewide presents her with several problems.

The first is that there is some legal doubt whether local boards can
have full autonomy without each being established as an independent
municipal school administrative unit.  This is in essence the current
school union system.  While this has its attractions to us on MDI and
elsewhere, if it were adopted statewide, the legs would by cut out
from under any possibility of Maine's ending up with 80 reorganized
school administrative units.  This is a substantial obstacle for both
the Commissioner and the legislature.

The second problem from the State's point of view is that, in places
without MDI's relative wealth and commitment to education, such
autonomy could be used to underfund schools and that, in systems with
complete local autonomy, there would be no mechanism to implement
coherent regional educational policy.

In this respect, as a general model, the primacy of either regional
reform or local autonomy are substantially at odds.  Conceptually, the
best combination requires that one be dependent upon a subordinated
policy of goodwill toward the other.

MDI presents the case that the regional coherence follows from a local
policy of cooperation.  To this, the State counters that MDI's local
boards already have ceded local authority to the board of Union 98 in
the recognition that regional coherence and efficiency benefit
everyone and therefore local autonomy need not be absolute.

And there we sit at present, with each side fairly well understanding
the position of the other.

Yesterday's meeting was valuable in that discussions face-to-face are
always useful.  If there is a mutually-satisfying resolution, it will
be found in such a setting.  Our legislators are committed to us as
their constituents and understand that, in most ways, we are likely to
be the easiest to accommodate.

Accompanied by Jim Rier, the Commissioner is a realist who can count
votes as well as anyone.  Our legislators also invited Senator Mills
from the Education Committee who is known for both his sharp
intelligence and ability to dig into difficult problems.

Senator Mills and the Commissioner outlined to us a proposal by which
local school committees could be granted general authorities of 'home
rule' (Senator Mills' term) if the law assigned certain specific
authorities to the RSU board -- such as oversight of central
administration, curriculum, special education, technology, or
transportation.

Further, they proposed that the requirement that each local board
could control the spending of its elementary school if the RSU as a
whole were allowed to set a "base level" of minimum spending and the
local municipality allowed to supplement that base without
restriction.

This prompted an interesting side discussion between Rob and Jim Rier
about whether or not under the present RSU models within an RSU have
sufficient latitude for minimum receivers with different valuations to
contain their own RSU assessments within the limits of their own
elementary school budgets.  (This would seem a good matter for Rob and
Jim to settle between themselves to their own satisfaction.)

We raised our concern about any mismatch between K-8 budget approval
and respective municipality in which the money is raised and spent.
But, while the black-box mechanism that can accomplish this was not
immediately apparent, that is not proof that it does not exist.

After our meeting, we visited the Education Committee's work session
which was in progress with the Committee hearing its concluding
presentation from Department of Education facilitators, all of whom
seemed to be of the mind that allowing any substantial authority to
local school committees represented clear and present danger to
regionalization.

At the conclusion of that, Senator Mills took the opportunity to
introduce us to the Committee and the Committee chairs graciously
invited us to present.

And so, really before we had time to breathe, much less prepare some
bullet points, Gail, Rob, and I found ourselves seated before the
Committee and being asked by Representative Sutherland to explain "So,
just what exactly is your issue?"

Senator Mills did a very good job of introducing the general problem
we face relating to governance and financing.  Representative Edgecomb
asked if we thought our model could be served through the proposed
system of Union School Associations.  Co-chair Norton raised the
general concern about maintaining educational equity across regions
with different financial capacity.  Representative Finch wanted to
know if we were expressing anything more than "downeast stubborness".
Finch added that every school board presenter tells them that their
own current system is both necessary and high-performing.  Here,
Senator Mills came to our immediate aid offering his opinion that "the
difference is that, they're telling the truth."

Last, Representative Farrington reminded the Committee, that the
current law already grants authority to local school boards within an
RSU and that the Committee's responsibility is to provide
clarification about what that authority is.

So, we are grateful to the Education Committee for allowing us to come
before them, essentially with no notice, at what was probably the very
tail end of their solicited testimony.  Given the opportunity, we did
our best frankly to convey the positions and requirements of the
communities on Mount Desert Island.

Today, the Committee intends to open their real work regarding LD1932
which appears to become their primary vehicle for improvements to the
law.