There is quite a bit of talk going on around Maine about school funding. LD 1274 was pushed through by Senate President Raye, who represents Washington County. The focus of the bill was to take money from Southern Maine school districts and redistribute that money to more rural areas. The overall effect of the bill’s changes were conveniently masked by projecting an additional $19 million dollars in school funding in the next annual budget. This made it look like there was hardly any impact districts.
The truth of the matter is that there is a significant shift that was specifically designed to benefit one area of the state over another. Washington County being one of the primary beneficiaries. It looks like this will be mitigated for Portland because our community’s valuation has dropped twice as much as the state average. But we are still seeing hundreds of thousands of dollars being taken from Portland and sent north and east.
I have submitted a bill for the coming session to repeal the changes under LD 1274, and to increase added funding for students in poverty across the state. The bill submitted also required a full study of the funding formula. Currently the formula doesn’t consider cost of living, real estate costs, and other factors that are important to Southern Maine. While I doubt that Senator Raye will allow this to be opened up and discussed in the state house, it is an important issue that we need to move forward!