Steve Lovejoy

Once again the governor is threatening schools!  According to the Bangor Daily News he has stated that if the legislature doesn’t enact his budget, including the Medicare cuts, DHHS will run out of funding by April 1st. and he will take the money out of the schools.  While he can’t close the schools because he doesn’t have the power to do so, he can cut their funding.  Should he do that, all of the towns will have to fund the rest of the school year because by law they need to have 175 days of school.  I suppose the Commissioner of Education could try to waive that requirement for every district, but what does that say about the importance of education?

The governor may be just trying to bully the changes though the legislature, but the latest news on that front is that there is very little likelihood of there being any waiver of current federal requirements on maintenance of effort requirements.  That would mean all of the work to try and bully this through would have been meaningless.  The fact the administration hasn’t even requested a waiver also seems to be odd timing given the importance Lepage is attaching to it.

What I find even more interesting is that the governor talked about “students first” and the importance of education, and then threatens to cut education funding.  However, he didn’t say anything about repealing the tax cut that was passed last year.  Those cuts, which benefit the wealthiest the most, haven’t gone into effect yet.  They could make up a big portion of the budget issue.  Even more horrifying, the governor in his speech talked about the fact that he will be proposing another tax cut!!!  If we have such a bad deficit, and are talking about cutting school funding, how can he even think that further tax cuts are going to find support in the legislature and in the state?

So, what should we do?  From my standpoint, we need to not cave in to this absurd budget and get to work doing what we need to do.  Convince all of the legislature that his plans are incompetent, ill advised, and a danger to the health of the state and our economy.  Then we need to repeal the tax cuts that were passed last year and redo the budget as a whole (not just DHHS).  For those of you reading this, I hope you will speak up!  Call, mail, and email your state representative (including me), your state senators and the Appropriations Committee.  The only way that the Republican majority is going to back away from supporting Lepage is if they realize that if they don’t they will end up out of office in November.  Now is the time, when everyone is looking towards the fall elections, to really put the pressure on!

If you don’t know who to write to, drop me an email at steve.lovejoy@myfairpoint.net and I will be happy to help you get in touch with them!

Don’t accept “maybe” or “we’ll see how it comes out of committee” or any other evasion.

http://bangordailynews.com/2012/01/27/health/lepage-again-threatens-to-take-money-from-schools-if-dhhs-cuts-not-approved/

The governor’s speech had some good things in it, and some that I have a real problem with.  Certainly the last topic he talked about, ending domestic abuse, is one that everyone can support.  The devil is in the details of course, so we will have to wait and see what the details are.  But a well crafted bill with the resources to actually enforce it will be welcome.

The Governor also talked about the incomes in the state and the big difference between incomes in Maine in comparison to New Hampshire and Massachusetts.  He said that Maine incomes need to come up to the levels of NH and MA.  But is it our business climate that makes that difference?  A quick look at educational attainment may hold some perspective.  Maine’s population aged 25 to 64 educational attainment figures show we have 37% of that age group has at least a 2 year degree.  How does that compare to NH and MA?  New Hampshire has 46% of their population in the same group, 9% higher.  Massachusetts is even higher, with 50% hold a two year degree or better.  Education has been proven to have a major impact on wages.  If we are to catch up on wages we will have to catch up on education to get there!

The governor also focused on electricity costs and compared Maine’s rates with those of the nation and with states like Oklahoma.  If one were to look closer to home, such as  Massachusetts and New Hampshire which were used in the prior paragraph, we would have to note that both Massachusetts and New Hampshire have higher electric rates than Maine.

The governor opened up early on welfare and Mainecare.  There weren’t any surprises, he wants to cut.  He talked about the absolute need to cut, and claimed his plan would protect those truly in need, but there weren’t any firm details.  The fact of the matter is that we will need to see the details and who suffers and how much.  The language was reasonable, but we need to get the details and see where the devil is!

The final issue I want to comment on is that of upcoming initiatives that were mentioned for education.  There weren’t any particular indications of what those initiatives will be.  Certainly I expect there to be more on school choice, but we will have to see what happens.

Tonight is the State of the State speech by Governor Lepage.  It will be interesting to see what he comes out with tonight.  Rumors have it that there are gong to be some initiatives that will really impact education, and after his ill advised comments about the need to pass his budget or he would close Maine’s schools as of Mat 1st it should be interesting to see what he has to say.  In addition it is almost a given that there will be more talk about DHHS and other issues.

Perhaps the most interesting thing will be to see if he talks about the loss of Kestrel to Wisconsin.  So far it has been the SODDIT (some other guy did it) routine.  The fact of the matter is that the state does not have all of the resources that a larger state such as Wisconsin has.  Plain and simple, we don’t have the ability to match larger states in these incentive packages.  The blame doesn’t lie with the Governor’s office, with Coastal Enterprises, the base redevelopment efforts, or with the legislature.  The fact of the matter is that we were probably used by Kestrel as a way to squeeze more out of Wisconsin.

This week we took up the anti-bullying bill that was carried over from last session.  Early in the week we tabled it in order to try and get the parties involved including the sponsor, Representative Morrison of South Portland, the ACLU, and the Maine School Management and Maine Principals Association to come to a full agreement on the language in the bill.  I sat in on the meeting and thought we had come to an agreement that was a viable compromise.  However, when we brought the bill back up in a second work session on Thursday the MPA and MSMA once again opposed the bill and voiced opposition.  Based upon that I moved that we table it once again and give them a last chance to get it together.  After the session I did tell both the MPA and the MSMA representatives that I was disappointed in the way this was going.  I also told them that if they did not manage to reach an agreement on a compromise that at our next hearing I would move to pass the bill as presented in spite of their efforts to derail this bill.

Bullying has always been with us, but it has never been as widespread.  When I was in school there was bullying, and our governor has basically admitted he was a bully when he talked about stealing candy from younger kids on Halloween.  But the bullying was more limited than it is today. Now bullying can take on so many different forms.  It may be physical bullying in the school yard, but it can also become mush more due to the use of the internet and the use of email as well as social media such as Facebook.  It can also involve smart phones and the ability to tweet messages, send pictures and more.  Those avenues never used to exist, and they are so easy to use, and hide behind by using screen names.

As I have expressed to the various parties involved in this, it is not acceptable to do nothing.  Just last spring we had a young woman who attended Erskine Academy commit suicide, due in large part to the bullying she was subjected to.  While some might think there are enough rules in place, they obviously were not effective in her case, and aren’t working to protect many other children.  School will have a hard time dealing with this issue, but is an issue that isn’t going away, or easy to change.  Leadership will be required to help change school attitudes about the problem and to make bullying socially unacceptable in our schools across the state.

But we can make those changes, and you can help make it better as well.  If you have kids be sure to talk to them and if they are being bullied make sure to contact the school and talk to them about it.  If you see a kid being bullied, speak up and stop it.  That may not be easy for you, but if will make a difference!

The Maine legislature started the 2012 session on the 4th.  To no one’s surprise there will be a lot of controversy and probably a lot of conflict.  Certainly Governor Lepage has set the stage for a lot of hot button issues, with his proposed cuts to DHHS, and his threat of having to close schools if we don’t cut DHHS.

His insistance on the cuts be only from the DHHS budget will probably be overridden by bipartisan agreement.  However, it seems unlikely at this point that the tax cuts passed last year (but not yet in place) will be considered as part of the cure.  Certainly Lepage would fight againse that idea.  The entire budget is going to be tough.

The issue of education funding will probably also be contentious.  At the very end of the session last year the Bill sponsored by Senator Raye shifted funding from southern and more urban districts to those more rural areas, especially Washington County.  The bill passed partly due to the clever disguise of $19 million that would be added to the school funding formula this year.  Given the current budget situation that $19 million is very unlikely to show up.  This will mean that many districts who thought they would be OK will find they are losing significant funding.   Certainly this will create some consternation when the new figures come out.  Portland will get a bit of a break from what was projected last year because our state evaluation figures  showed a greater decline than the state as a whole so that will cusion us to an extent.

Tax policy and income inequality are hot topics in today’s economy.  I just came across this article from the San Francisco Chronicle and thought I would share it.  The situation in California is interesting because of their huge state economy.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/08/BAR91M9JKN.DTL

The Department of Education has announced hearings for the public to voice their ideas on creating educational standards for the state rather than using federal standards.  There will be a hearing in Bangor and in Portland as well as an online version.  The hearings are are scheduled Dec. 8 in Bangor; online on Dec. 13; and Dec. 14 in Portland. The Department is also seeking feedback through an online survey and in an ongoing online discussion in which the Commissioner and other staff will participate.

I urge everyone to participate!

Recently, Governor Lepage held a conference (gripe session?) in Auburn to hear from business owners about their problems with regulations and other handicaps on businesses here in Maine.  I can applaud his desire to do that and to create a better economy.  That is what we all want.  When I found out about that meeting I made a request for an invitation.  I work in the economic development field and have taught strategic management, entrepreneurship and other related courses so I have a keen interest in how we can move our economy forward.  I really wanted to hear from the businesses so that I could be of more help to our small business community.  Perhaps it could also help me in terms of working on legislation in the upcoming session.

However, that was not to be.  The Governor’s office declined my request, saying it was only for business owners.  Of course I knew that the Governor had refused to allow the press to attend, but wouldn’t it be a good thing to have representatives from the legislature there?  Strategically it would seem that it might be a way to try and build more consensus.  Wouldn’t the business owners like to have a chance to voice their concerns to more policymakers?  Try and build more support?

But no, I have a D after my name, so I couldn’t know.  So, if the press can’t hear what is being said, and the legislators can’t hear what the concerns are, is it only the Governor who really knows what is being said?  Does he believe he is the only one that matters in the process?

So much for the Governor’s promised transparency in his administration!