Many coastal communities and islands will be losing a substantial portion of state education money as a result of the most recent supplemental budget that passed this week.

Included within the recent supplemental budget was a Department of Education policy change that cuts special education funds from what are called “minimum receiver” towns.  Minimum receiver towns are towns with high property values and declining enrollments and who receive the lowest share of state General Purpose Aid to education.  The only state money they receive for education is special education money as required by the 2004 referendum.

This was the state-wide referendum where the people of this state voted to require 55 percent of the cost education and 100 percent of the cost of special education to be funded by state dollars instead of property taxes. It was also the supposed property tax relief we were to receive in response to the Palesky tax-cap initiative. The special education provision was included in this referendum to lure high-valuation coastal communities on board.  

To date, state funding for general purpose aid to education has not reached the 55 percent goal and special education funding has only reached 84 percent not the 100 percent demanded.  In addition, little if any of this extra money went towards property tax relief.
Minimum receiver towns are often “working waterfront” towns that have been hit the hard by recent increases in property taxes in this state. The small amount of special education money provides minimal but valuable property tax relief for these communities.  Cutting this promised special education funding puts more property tax burden on the backs of coastal working waterfront property owners and will likely further reduce the shore frontage available for this industry.

Although this cut is supposedly temporary and special education funding is scheduled to return to the former 84% in fiscal year 2009-2010, you can bet that there will be a bill next year to make these temporary cuts permanent.

Some of the towns in our area that will be receiving the cuts are Bremen, Bristol, South Bristol, Newcastle, Monhegan, Boothbay, Southport and Arrowsic. In general, these are working/fishing middle income communities and their residents are hardly “filthy rich,” as they were called by one Senator during the DOE hearings.  The losses to these towns, which add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, will have to be made up by increased property taxes or further education cuts.

In contrast to these communities that are receiving no general purpose aid to education and are receiving cuts to special education funding, high per-capita income towns like Cape Elizabeth, Yarmouth, Falmouth, and Cumberland are continuing to receive their ever-increasing GPA funds and are not receiving any cuts to their special education funding.

It is important to remember that a total of $1.956 billion will be spent on General Purpose Aid to education over the current fiscal biennium, an increase — after all cuts — of over $206 million.  Minimum receiver towns will get none of this.
I proposed an amendment that would have removed this DOE policy change from the budget but it was killed on a partisan vote and by many who claimed to be protectors of Maine’s working waterfront.

Education funding in Maine is extremely complicated.  There appears to be no “rhyme or reason” to our convoluted school funding formula — a formula, which no one can seem to explain accurately and appears not to exist in any tangible form. The result is a somewhat arbitrary, unpredictable and inequitable distribution of state funds to municipalities, that changes with the whims of the legislature with what seems little regard to the ultimate goal of providing the best education possible to all the students in this state.

This most-recent special education distribution policy change, hidden deep within the supplemental budget document, is more evidence of our ever-changing and out-of-control education funding system in Maine.  The result is an unnecessary tax shift that adds insult to injury to coastal communities who are consistently promised tax relief but invariably receive the opposite.

Jonathan McKane is the second term State Representative for the towns of Bristol, South Bristol, Damariscotta, Edgecomb, Newcastle and Monhegan.  He can be reached at www.jonmckane.com.