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Towns not in compliance look to avoid state penalties, while others call for flexibility to withdraw.

By MATTHEW STONE, Kennebec Journal November 18, 2009

AUGUSTA — Some of the staunchest opponents of Maine's school district consolidation mandate had a chance Tuesday to tell lawmakers how the law should be changed.

The Legislature's Education Committee also heard from school officials who have been trying to make the law work since consolidation.

The discussions came as the panel began considering how lawmakers need to change the consolidation mandate, two weeks after voters upheld it in a referendum on its repeal.

The 2007 consolidation law was an attempt to cut administrative expenses by merging the state's 290 school districts into 80. But with more than 100 school districts turning down merger plans, the state now has 218 districts.

Roger Shaw, superintendent of Mars Hill-based School Administrative District 42, said the state should eliminate any penalties on districts that don't comply with the law.

"It's unconscionable to think of penalties," he said, considering that Gov. John Baldacci will announce a statewide spending curtailment Friday that likely will cut more than $38 million from school budgets statewide.

But Bill Webster, superintendent of the new Regional School Unit 24, cautioned against eliminating penalties. He said many of the voters in his Ellsworth-based district, which encompasses 12 towns, would not have voted to consolidate if not for the prospect of a penalty.

Skip Greenlaw, chairman of the Maine Coalition to Save Schools, the group that led the campaign this fall to overturn the merger law, suggested allowing more flexibility within the law.

For example, he said, if legislators drop minimum enrollments that are part of the law, more consolidation can happen. The law now requires most consolidated districts to have at least 1,200 students.

In addition, towns that are unhappy with the districts they're in need a way to withdraw, Greenlaw said.

"I don't want to suggest that you make it easy, but I think there are a lot of RSUs that have incurred substantial tax increases as a result of (consolidating)," he said.

Shannon Welsh, superintendent of Freeport-based RSU 5, also suggested that lawmakers give unhappy towns a way out of their consolidated districts. Pownal had a 35 percent increase in its local tax burden after it merged into RSU 5.

"I've had people in Pownal say to me, 'We might not use the opt-out law, but emotionally we need it,"' Welsh said.