It's more than understandable that school administrators and other officials are facing the prospect of further cuts in state education aid with somewhat less than a stiff upper lip.
It has to be difficult to have gone through an already-constrained budget process and then find that the money that was plugged in to a variety of accounts may not be there after all.
On the other hand, there are plenty of private-sector businesses in the current recession that could match – or surpass – those stories with ones of their own.
Have administrators had to cut back on trips, limit overtime and even find members of "middle management" to let go? So have the people who own the hardware store, the metal shop and the auto dealership – assuming the dealership survived the wave of shutdowns that roiled the industry a few months ago.
The reality of the situation for schools isn't very different from that of the private sector. Gov. Baldacci has asked Education Commissioner Susan Gendron to reduce state spending on local schools by $38 million during the current fiscal year, which ends next June 30.
And aid in the next fiscal year, the second of the current budgetary biennium (state government sets budgets two years at a time), cuts in local aid are expected to reach $53 million.
Since that figure's just a projection, it could conceivably increase if revenue doesn't pick up soon.
The news led to South Portland's freezing its budget in order to give it time to plan for its $1.2 million share of the cuts (but $700,000 in stimulus money may help soften the blow).
Portland, too, is going to be viewing discretionary spending requests with a skeptical eye, and Superintendent Jim Morse is going to be saying no to such requests "95 percent of the time" as he faces a $2.7 million curtailment.
Such issues have arisen all over the state. The public sector should not expect to be immune from the same forces that have affected private firms. But some are worried that if cuts continue, they might jeopardize federal aid that is keyed to the amount that communities and the state contribute to supporting education.
If funding drops below 2005-06 levels, as it might if trimming goes too much deeper in the coming fiscal year, grants for special education, school lunches and further stimulus grants could be in danger.
However, that's what we have representatives in Congress to handle. At a time when many Mainers are either jobless or working fewer hours, or living in fear of those conditions, being threatened with a federal club is hardly fair – and it hardly meets either the spirit or the intent of laws passed to help the children in need of the services that the federal funds support.
Their being punished by withholding needed federal aid is something that should be addressed by those with the power to prevent it.
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