While most communities are moving ahead with mandatory school consolidation, only one school district has filed a complete plan with the state and the big sticking points are cost-sharing arrangements, how the new districts will be governed locally and requests to come in under the 1,200-student minimum required by law.

Education Commissioner Susan Gendron has filed legislation on behalf of the Department of Education to address cost-sharing, but says the other issues are more intractable.

"I'm not convinced we should go below 1,200," Gendron said in an interview. She said very specific criteria would be needed to allow exceptions to the law, which currently calls for 80 school districts statewide of at least 2,500 students, where possible, but no fewer than 1,200.

"We're encouraging them to look at 10 years and out and that's going to be a critical factor," she said. "If you approve a regional school unit smaller than 1,200, and that's going to drop to 800 over the next 10 years, it's not sustainable."

If school districts of fewer than 1,200 are allowed, Gendron is at least thinking about some financial penalty, like establishing a lower level of state aid.

There are 24 districts that filed plans earlier this month that add up to fewer than 1,200 students. The majority of those districts are individual towns or plantations, which Gendron said are expected to merge with their neighbors.

The number is up from the 13 initially reported by the Department of Education. Plans were due to the department on Dec. 1, but the review of those plans and tabulation of those in compliance was just completed.

There are 29 plans in total that the commissioner says do not comply with the law versus simply being incomplete, including the 24 under 1,200; a district in Aroostook County that refused to submit anything; and, a handful that are not in compliance with current law because of other issues.

More than 60 others are of the right size, either through consolidation or as they exist today, but their plans are incomplete, in part because they have not included all the required budget information. The law requires districts to say how they will cut administrative, transportation, maintenance and special education costs, but still maintain quality programs. The state already has reduced promised state aid in those areas by $36 million in the 2008-2009 school year.

Only one district, comprising Bath, West Bath, Woolwich, Phippsburg and Arrowsic, is ready to go, and it was created by special legislation prior to passage of the statewide school consolidation law.

Gendron said she was prepared to draw the line in the sand now on one the most contentious issues still being debated - school governance.

She was reacting to a proposal from Mount Desert Island to create what she says is a "super union" that allows communities to keep control of their kindergarten through grade eight systems. The configuration got its name based on the school unions that currently exist, where there's a shared superintendent, but local school committees in each of the towns it serves.

Gendron said MDI's proposal, which she rejected, was being watched by other school districts that also want to adopt the super union model.

"What MDI proposed is a super union. Every K-8 community would have their own budget; they'd have their own school committee. They would operate their schools; they'd keep their debt; and they'd only come together for high school issues."

In a letter to MDI, she wrote: "While the reorganization law does permit an RSU (Regional School Unit) board to create local school committees, it was not the intent of the law to allow local school committees to usurp the authority of the RSU boards themselves."

"The super union concept will be the other big debate, which I will absolutely oppose and have opposed because it does not get at the efficiencies," Gendron said.

The debate will be déjà vu because many of the issues brought up in the plans filed earlier this month were debated earlier this year when legislators were crafting the original school consolidation plan. That plan was attached to the state budget and passed both the House and Senate with a two-thirds vote.

Legislators hoping to get a second chance submitted more than 60 amendments to the law this fall that they wanted considered in 2008. The Legislature comes back into session on Jan. 2.

Democratic leaders rejected the individual amendments, including some from their own party, saying the Education Committee would review all proposals and come out with an all-encompassing bill.

A marathon public hearing is scheduled in Augusta for Jan. 4, when legislators will be allowed to propose their amendments. Each legislator will have a total of seven minutes - five minutes to present and two minutes for discussion. The Education Committee will then report out a bill by mid-February.

The Education Committee earlier this month gave its backing to the commissioner's bill, which is designed to reduce financial barriers currently preventing districts from coming together.

The biggest issue it addresses is some communities would be asked to pick up costs for their neighbors in a consolidated unit under the cost-sharing formula currently in law.

Gendron's bill would allow communities to negotiate a new cost-sharing formula. It also allows property-rich communities, who currently are only getting minimal state aid in the form of special education funding, to keep that funding even when they go into a consolidated district. The third piece removes the requirement that all communities, regardless of their student population, have to contribute at list 2 mills toward education if they join a regional school unit.

Gendron expects her bill to hit the floor as early as the second week in January.

She hopes the bill's hearing before the Education Committee, when only one substantive amendment was attached to the legislation, is indicative of how things will go on the floor.

That amendment takes away the current requirement in the school consolidation law that school budgets this year have to go out to referendum for approval even before new districts are formed.