Two weeks ago, Union 74 Superintendent Bob Bouchard and other superintendents around Maine received a letter from Maine Education Commissioner Susan Gendron. In the letter, Gendron explained she intends to ask the legislature to freeze general-purpose aid subsidies for the next two years.
For the entire state this is a significant reduction. According to Bouchard, it could be up to $170 million less than the 55 percent funding requirement. He feels it will affect different areas differently, but that Union 74 would be minimally affected.
“Some areas could require department reductions or postponing new school construction bond issues,” Bouchard said. “It might affect Woolwich, because their new building is opening soon. A town like Jefferson wouldn’t be affected because their project didn’t need bonding.”
In Union 74, towns have minimum receivership status, so only a tiny portion of the school funding comes from state subsidies. Bouchard explained other districts who rely on subsidies more, such as Lewiston, would be harder hit by the proposed changes.
“Our subsidy is down to less than 10 percent of our operating budget,” Bouchard said. “So, we won’t suffer any devastating losses. However any loss forces us to look at choices.”
Bouchard explained steady reductions in funding over the past decade or more, lessened the impact of this blow to local schools. In fact, this is actually increased funding over what has been offered in the past few years in this area.
“We’re very lucky that our communities support our local school the way they do,” he said.
Having the indication about next year’s funding is good, according to Bouchard. He feels it makes going to town meeting easier, knowing the funding level. His worry is that at the end of the next two years, funding will drop significantly to levels it would have been reduced to if funding hadn’t been held flat.
“If we do this, at the end of that two-year period is a drop in subsidy,” said Bouchard. “It will be painful at that time to ask the towns to make up the difference, or make cuts deep enough to have an impact.”
The timing of the actual announcement about state funding levels could have significant impact in the process as well. “If they tell us in May we need to cut a million dollars, we can’t cut expenses or lay enough people off that time of year,” Bouchard said.
He explained the superintendents are waiting to see results from the Maine Economic Policy Committee, which meets in mid-November. Bouchard thinks that might give school officials an idea about what will happen next.
“We are anxious to see those results,” said Bouchard. “We’ll get to see how they are projecting state revenues for next year given problems within the stock market and the economy.”
