Keep your eye on the ball (Augusta)

This should be a whopper of a legislative session, with budget shortfalls, the Governor already announcing cuts of $38 million in Education and Health and Human Services, and more slashing expected with declining revenues. It's a pretty safe bet that Augusta won't find it easy to keep everyone happy. In fact, trying to decide what's really in the best interests of the state as a whole promises to be a formidable task.

Nearly every community in the state will be closely watching the state's bold new plan to consolidate smaller school districts into larger units with one superintendent and administrative staff, supposedly to save money. Towns have balked at the prospects of giving up control over their individual schools to a larger school board, and also having to turn over their land, and assuming debts of other schools in a new, larger, district. Augusta, which to date seems willing to ignore the fact that they've opened a can of worms, must deal this session with problems of having to raise teachers' salaries to match those of some others in the new mega-districts, decide how to handle severance pay for those under contract who will lose their jobs, and appease the smaller towns forced to pay more for their schools than they have in the past. Every day, a new problem develops which creates a nightmare for this whole new concept, and supports arguments that it's not going to save us any money.

It's hard to believe that Maine, which has long prided itself on the fact that its people still retain a unique form of self-government with individual school systems, a town meeting form of government, etc., now has leaders who apparently believe that bigger is better. A school is often what holds a small community together, and having it run by a school board which conceivably may have very little connection with the community is just plain not the Maine way.

We'll be watching closely the petition scheduled to be introduced this month calling for repeal of the new law, because it represents how the majority of Maine folks (Augusta excepted) feel about consolidation. Rumors that Augusta may try to reject the petition on the grounds that the new law has been changed slightly and thus the petition addresses the wrong law had better be just that - rumors - or you're apt to see another Boston Tea Party. Maine voters want an opportunity to say how they feel about this poorly conceived law, and they're determined to get it, one way or another.

The Governor has also indicated he may propose consolidating other departments of government as a cost-saving move. We hope the ideas have more merit than the school proposal, but it would appear they, too, follow the philosophy that bigger is better, and also cheaper. Too bad history finds significant flaws in this line of thinking.

Keep your eye on Augusta this winter. Maine as we know it may be in jeopardy.