[Local-Maine-Schools] Talking points (Judy Sproule via Skip Greenlaw)

[Dick Atlee]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Talking points
Date: 	Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:06:12 -0400
From: 	skipgreenlaw <skipg at hypernet.com>

Good morning everyone,

Judy Sproule has very effectively rewritten "talking points" for all of
us who are either calling our legislators and/or are going to Augusta on 
Wednesday to talk with legislators.  This is by no means an exhaustive 
list.  Please use your own experience working with the law to convince 
legislators to repeal the law this session.

- The original purported intent of the law was that it would reduce
excessive, administrative expenses.  That in itself is a commendable
goal, but the law fails to achieve these savings and at the same time
produces additional expenses that for some districts far outweigh any 
potential savings.

- Consolidation of districts will require adding layers of
administration that will add to expenses, as discovered by many regional
planning committees(RPCs).

- The savings are primarily based on a theoretical $204student
administration.  Only one school administrative unit(SAU),Scarborough,
can come close to this per student expense as their school
administrative costs are essentially included in the municipal budget.
For the rest of the state, this is a pipedream as are DoE's models for
central office administration, which do not even allow for their own
onerous reporting requirements.

- The current levels of fuel prices for buses and heating relative to
prices in June 2007 render impossible the 5% cuts in transportation and 
operations and maintainence.

- Legal counsel have advised SAUs that cutting costs in special
education to comply with 5% cut will produce far more costly legal expenses.

- "Unanticipated financial barriers to consolidation" add a whole new
level of expenses to communities cost of education.

- The cost shifting among communities that consolidate may benefit some
towns, but only at the expense of others.  The magnitude of these shifts
is in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars for the various
RSUs.  LD 1932 does not resolve these shifts; it merely places the
burden of negotiating these shifts on the municipalities and pretends
that the state has no complicity in putting them in this untenable
situation.

- The law's requirement to create single employment contracts creates
a brand new expense in that it will force municipalities to step up to 
the highest scale within the RSU.  This will add millions of dollars to 
the expense of education overnight, and there will not be anything 
different to show for it.

- The way the law is written, minimum receivers lose all subsidy.  LD
1932, if it passes, grandfathers minimum receivers only for the two
years preceding consolidation.  New minimum receivers will not be
entitled to any state subsidy, and some regular subsidy receivers will
lose their funding and be artificially forced into minimum receiver
status.

- Now that we have seen the effect of budget cuts in the preliminary
ED-281s, it is unequivocally clear that school funding for many 
municipalities is drastically cut and that is a new fact of life school 
committees will deal with.  There is no merit, whatsoever, to anyone in 
forcing the governance change mandated by school district consolidation 
law and no justification for the additinal expenses it creates.

- If there are any questions regarding implementation of this law,
hundreds of Maine people have volunteered their time and put in 
thousands of hours with their RPCs.  The legislative Joint Standing 
Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs declined to hear testimony 
of any citizens, but the RPC members can attest to this law's failings.

- The unrealistic proponents of this law are still not cognizant of the
reality that many municipalities will simply vote against a proposed 
consolidation plan if the RPCs allow consolidation to get to that stage.

- To date 40,000 citizens have signed a petition to request a referendum
for repeal, and an additional 15,000 signatures will be collected to put 
this issue on the November 2009 ballot if the legislature does not 
repeal the law.

- The financial penalties for not consolidating are relatively small,
especially when considering that they will be in effect for one year
before this state has a new governor and commissioner of education.
Furthermore, the legislature is currently considering changing the
standard rate for minimum receivers to be equal to what would be their
penalty for non-compliance.

- Finally, last year during the debate on school consolidation, 
opponents argued that there would be no cost savings, but did not have 
the factual information to substantiate that claim.  Now the information 
is absolutely conclusive that there is _no_ cost savings.  In fact, 
implementation of school consolidation will result in the largest single 
tax increase for Maine local property taxpayers as well as substantial 
increase for state government.  The remaining question is why does the 
administration and legislature maintain that school consolidation will 
save money in light of over-whelming evidence to the contrary.

We hope these "talking points" are helpful.  Please continue to call
legislators and let me know what you learn.  If we want to see the law 
repealed this session, now is the time to do the work with our 
legislators.  Please keep me informed of your conversations with 
legislators.  We shall gather in the rotunda on the third floor of the 
State House by 8 AM on Wednesday, March 26, 2008.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Skip