A Reality Check

With the state budget gap now estimated to be $190 million, another round of cuts is in the works if Maine is to avoid tax increases, and voters have repeatedly made it clear they prefer a leaner state government instead. The latest proposal calls for an additional $34 million cut in state aid to education on top of the $36 million in cuts made last year, and a $27 million cut in health and human services added to the $65 million already cut from that department. The latest budget-cutting proposal, and one which pleases many Maine folks, is the eliminations of 71 state jobs.

One of the proposals which should interest us here on the coast is reducing special needs reimbursement to "rich" school districts like ours from 84 percent funding to 50 percent. Essentially, more of the burden would be placed on the individual towns and their property taxpayers.

The reason this is important is because, if you remember, the state began giving us close to full funding for our special needs students just a few years ago - a move some say was simply to appease rich coastal towns. Prior to that time, we got precious little. Some legislators are still complaining that we shouldn't get any money at all for special education, because we don't need it, and they'd like to see us get nothing again.

So what does that mean for the future? If high-valuation coastal towns ultimately get precious little funding from the state, as they did years ago, one would wonder why we should be subjected to the state's attempts to create super-districts, and throw our longstanding methods of school operation into turmoil. All for what? Certainly not to produce smarter students; those of us who support the concept of "smaller schools are better schools" and local control is essential, aren't likely to buy that argument any time soon.

The budget mess in Augusta and the dwindling state support for schools is all the reason to look back twenty or thirty years when towns were pretty much responsible for funding their own schools. Of course, it meant we had "rich" districts and "poor" districts, but nobody ever convinced us that students in older buildings or cramped conditions were not as well prepared for college - and life - as those with shiny new desks and huge new gymnasiums. The success of a student is primarily dependent upon the teachers, and when you have good teachers, you can work wonders.

Southport has taken one step toward defying state rules by approving their school budget as part of their town meeting, just as they've always done, rather than follow new state guidelines. Perhaps it's time we reminded our leaders in Augusta that we like local control over our schools, thank you very much, and if that means giving up "free" state money, so be it. We pretty much went it alone years ago; we can do it again. We shouldn't sell our soul for the Almighty Dollar.