Baldacci promotes plan to consolidate school districts

AUGUSTA, Maine --Gov. John Baldacci and top administration officials, after rolling out a $6.4 billion biennial budget proposal, will resume their efforts to explain and promote it this week with a key focus being a controversial education component.

The governor's package honors past commitments in calling for a substantial boost of funding for K-12 education. Baldacci insists that local property taxpayers should be guaranteed the benefits of virtually all of an assumed $170 million reduction in municipal tax burdens.

But the governor also proposed a sweeping outline for overhauling the complex statewide network of local school systems. Suggesting the status quo is rife with redundancies, Baldacci says the concept of consolidation must now be taken from study to action. And he says an incentive approach should be supplanted by a mandate from the capital.

Baldacci would shrink 152 district administrations to 26 units known as regional centers.

In a formal budget message, the governor said "tackling school administrative structures will help address fragmentation of decision-making in Maine."

Amid immediate questions about its practicality and impact on local control, the consolidation proposal has been targeted for 18 months from now with total biennial savings, state and local, pegged at $66 million through June 2009.

Administration officials say the plan could save about $240 million through fiscal 2011.

Education Commissioner Susan Gendron, who played a key role in last week's unveiling, has scheduled another press briefing Monday in the State House Cabinet Room.

Her department also has distributed background information and supporting material to not only describe how the proposed consolidation would work but argue why it should be undertaken.

Administration officials suggest the governor's budget would allow for a $3.6 million investment in teacher salaries over the next 2 years, $2,000 scholarships to encourage student advancement to college and an expansion of the laptop computer program for middle- and high school students.

Meanwhile, budget advisers promised more clarity on the status of exploration by the Department of Health and Human Services to privatize billings.

Also getting attention is the proposed creation of a Department of Commerce that would combine the promotional and regulatory functions of two existing agencies -- the Department of Economic and Community Development and the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation.

Well along in the advocacy process is the governor's call for an increase in Maine's cigarette tax from $2 to $3 a pack. Supporters tout it as both a revenue-raiser and a public health boon.

Baldacci administration officials attribute $554 million each year in direct health care costs to smoking.

"But it's about more than dollars and cents," Baldacci said. "It's about saving lives. Over 29,000 children alive today will die prematurely from smoking."

Immediate legislative reaction to the overall budget was restrained, but Democratic and Republican leaders say they have been talking among themselves about the desirability of taking the full winter and spring to develop bipartisan agreement on whatever changes are to made to Baldacci's plan.

"We have a number of challenges to meet, and the best course is to work together in a bipartisan fashion to identify the priorities that we share and that will help create prosperity for our state," House of Representatives Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, said in a statement. "We want to set a good example and the right tone on working together to get the best and most agreeable plan for everyone involved."

Past moves by majority Democrats to set budget voting earlier have allowed them to limit Republican input and have provoked across-the-aisle hostility.

"The preparation of this budget has involved very difficult choices," Baldacci said in his formal budget message. "Still, it is a budget that reflects compassion and responsibility, holding Maine on a course toward sustainable prosperity."

Legislative budget writers must first take up a bundle of supplemental adjustments to cover unanticipated shortfalls and other demands for the last half of the current fiscal year.

That would include following through on an administration pledge to pay off outstanding debt to Maine hospitals.