From fayetttm at localnet.com Sat Jan 23 01:49:58 2010 From: fayetttm at localnet.com (Mark Robinson) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:49:58 -0500 Subject: [Local-Maine-Schools] Reorganization Law Update Message-ID: <002b01ca9bce$75ffd830$61ff8890$@com> Greetings All: Please find the two attached documents and e-mail below from Dustin Brooks, Preti Flaherty's Government Relations Liasson following the e-mail below from Skip Greenlaw. My apologies for duplicity in advance, if you have received this more than once however, time is short and the hour late. Have a good weekend. Mark From: skip greenlaw [mailto:skipg at midmaine.com] Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 6:45 PM To: skipgreenlaw Subject: Education Committee hearings Good evening everyone, It is nice to be communicating with you all. Many of you probably already know that the legislative Education Committee is considering several bills for amending the school district consolidation law, which will hopefully be consolidated (no pun intended) into one bill. LD 1732, An Act to Allow a Municipality To Withdraw from a Regional School Unit will be presented by Rep. Lisa Miller of Somerville (near Augusta) before the Education Committee on Monday, January 25 at 1 PM in the Cross State office Building in Augusta. This proposal is based on the withdrawal procedure in the old SAD law. LD !735, An Act to Waive Certain Penalties Imposed against School Administrative Units if the State Has Not Fulfilled Its Goal of Paying 55% of Costs will be presented by Rep. Peggy Rotundo of Lewiston. This bill essentially waives the penalty until the State of Maine pays 55% of the aggregate cost of education in Maine. Although I'd rather have the penalty repealed permanently, it will be a long, long time (if ever) before the State funds 55% of the cost of education. This bill will be heard on Tuesday, January 26 at 2 PM before the Education Committee in the Cross Building. Works sessions (where the committee debates and voted on the bill- either approve or disapprove will be for LD 1732 on Thursday, January 28 at 3:00 PM and on LD 1735 on Friday, January 29 at 9 AM . I urge any of you who can testify on either of these bills to do so. All the input we can get from different areas of the state will be very helpful. Believe it or not the I think that some meaningful amendments will be enacted. Please stay in touch as I shall do the same as these bills wind their way through the process. Best wishes, Skip From: Brooks, Dustin D. [mailto:DBrooks at preti.com] Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 4:17 PM To: Mark Robinson Cc: Dick Gould; skip greenlaw; Roger S. Shaw; Walker, Daniel W. Subject: Reorganization Law Improvement Initiative Update FOR DISTRIBUTION TO INTERESTED PARTIES The Education Committee will begin its hearings of the bills we're particularly interested in on Monday, January 25. The committee will spend much of next week discussing these issues. On Sunday evening, we will be sending the committee, via e-mail, a letter outlining our overall requests for changes in this session. We will also provide a hard copy for them in the committee room on Monday morning. Subsequent to that, we will testify on the bills we are particularly interested in and submit language as needed. The schedule is as follows for the two bills that address two of our goals (LD 1732 - Opt Out and LD 1735 - Penalty Repeal). It is not yet clear which bill will be the "committee bill" in which we hope to put the remainder of our issues - it may well be a new piece of legislation entirely, or one of the carry over bills. Please note, it is likely that the concepts in these two bills could be combined (ideally, with some of our other requests) into a single, omnibus bill by the committee. Schedule for the Week of January 25 Monday, January 25, 1:00pm - LD 1732 (Opt Out) Public Hearing Tuesday, January 26, 2:00pm - LD 1735 (Penalty Repeal) Public Hearing Thursday, January 28, 3:00pm - LD 1732 (Opt Out) Work Session Friday, January 29, 9:00am - LD 1735 (Penalty Repeal) Work Session Copies of each piece of legislation are attached. We will be testifying in support of LD 1732 and in support of an amended version of LD 1735 that would not dictate a certain amount of local share of funding in order to have penalties waived. We'll send around a copy of our letter and testimony on Sunday in advance of the first hearing on Monday. Let us know if you have any questions or comments, Dustin Please feel free to contact Dustin Brooks at 623-5300 or by e-mail DBrooks at preti.com for more information. All the best. Mark Mark Robinson, Town Manager Town of Fayette 2589 Main Street Fayette, Maine 04349 phone (207) 685-4373 facsimile (207) 685-9391 e-mail: markrobinson at fayettemaine.com web site: www.fayettemaine.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: LD 1732 (Opt Out).pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 34604 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: LD 1735 (Penatly Repeal).pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 12320 bytes Desc: not available URL: