Last fall, state legislators submitted over 60 bills to amend the state's controversial school consolidation law. None of those bills made it into the current legislative session as legislative leaders opted instead to allow the Education Committee to draft any corrective legislation. On December 12, the Committee held a public hearing on the Department of Education's plan to modify the consolidation law, and subsequently submitted a bill to make certain changes to the law by emergency action. Last Friday, January 4, the committee convened another public hearing, this time to hear recommendations for consolidation reform from state legislators.

Twenty-two state legislators appeared before the Education Committee on Friday and recommended changes to the school consolidation law that ranged from technical revisions to major overhauls to outright repeal of the law. These recommendations included allowing small districts to share administrative services without merging into regional districts, relaxing the minimum-size requirement for districts, replacing penalties for noncompliance with financial incentives for compliance, creating an appeal process for rejected consolidation plans, and eliminating the requirement that future school budgets be approved by ballot.

At the hearing, Representative Bruce MacDonald of Boothbay proposed that the law be amended to allow consolidation of school administration without removing local control over school budgets or property. MacDonald said that the school consolidation legislation "confused administrative consolidation with the consolidation of school governance, requiring the effective abandonment of local school committees." MacDonald attributed the widespread dissatisfaction with the new law with this loss of local control. "This local school culture is a vital aspect of the civic life of Maine small towns. . . . local schools have often become . . . the heart and soul of local political and community life . . . I believe that when we take away local governance from our schools we decrease public involvement in a vital aspect of public life. This is the opposite of what we want," MacDonald testified.

MacDonald's plan would give regional planning committees another option to consolidation as proposed under the current law. Under this new option, schools in the new administrative unit would merge specific administrative functions, such as purchasing, payroll, transportation, curriculum planning, legal, special education and food services, but would not merge employee contracts or property. Local school boards would continue to exist and would retain their existing functions and powers except for those related to the newly merged administration. A regional school board would oversee the district, and would be comprised of members from the individual school boards. MacDonald's proposal also includes financial incentives for districts that collaborate on classroom, distance learning opportunities or consolidating schools.

Union 49 School Superintendent Eileen King was less than enthusiastic about MacDonald's plan, "Representative McDonald's testimony further emphasizes the legislature's complete lack of understanding of the role of the superintendent of schools. The mere premise that consolidation should move forward while maintaining local school boards and individual teacher contracts is a perfect example of this lack of understanding … I fail to continue to see where the cost savings would be achieved in this model. In order to maintain this type of school governance, and work effectively with 11 school boards, negotiate 10 different contracts and manage 13 budgets, not to mention the myriad of other duties and responsibilities of the superintendent of schools, additional staff would need to be hired to ensure the effective management of finances and human resources."

The Education Committee, which took no votes and heard no public testimony on Friday, plans to consider the legislators' recommendations over the next few weeks and decide whether to propose additional school consolidation reform.

Meanwhile, advocates of repealing the school consolidation law continue in their efforts. Skip Greenlaw, Maine Coalition to Save Schools Chair, said, "If this law is not repealed and consolidation goes forward, the governor and legislature will have perpetuated the single largest property tax increase on Maine property taxpayers in the history of this state." Petition organizers have reportedly gathered over 40,000 of the 55,000 signatures needed to get the repeal referendum on the ballot.