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Merger law may change

Panel approves striking down minimum size requirements for some rural school districts

By Matthew Stone, Staff Writer

AUGUSTA -- School districts struggling to comply with Maine's school district consolidation law could have added flexibility drawing up merger agreements after a legislative panel Friday approved a slate of changes to the law.

The proposed amendments to the three-year-old consolidation law go to the full Legislature next.

The changes, approved unanimously by the Legislature's Education Committee, would strike down minimum size requirements that have eluded some rural districts, and would allow individual towns to withdraw from the new school districts they've joined.

The committee's amendments are the latest set of changes legislators have sought after the law passed as a part of a budget in June 2007.

The law originally intended to merge Maine's 290 school districts into 80 to save on administrative costs. But opposition in small districts throughout the state thwarted dozens of mergers, leaving Maine with 215 districts.

Districts with 2,500 or more students were exempt from the merger mandate.

"From the beginning, there was an obvious need to be flexible," said Sen. Carol Weston, R-Montville, an Education Committee member. "We hope, in this legislation, we've turned a corner."

Under the amendment proposals, small school districts looking to merge their administrative offices could skirt minimum student numbers if they show state education officials it's impossible to form larger, regional districts -- because of geographical isolation, voter opposition to mergers or other reasons.

The original law set a 2,500-student minimum for merged school districts. Subsequent amendments to the law allowed districts as small as 1,000 students -- a threshold still too high for many of the state's rural schools.

Maine's education commissioner would have discretion to approve plans for the smaller merged districts.

The provision letting towns withdraw from the new districts they've joined would allow the voter-approved move after a town has been part of a district for at least three years.

After withdrawing, a town wouldn't be subject to penalties tied into the consolidation law -- state subsidy cuts that have to be made up with local tax money -- for two years.

The same timeline applies for the towns left behind in a new school district arrangement, which would have to reformulate their consolidation agreement.

Other changes proposed for the consolidation law would allow alternative organizational structures -- a looser affiliation among member towns than the more common regional school units -- to request more detailed, town-by-town funding information from the state Department of Education.

State education officials say the expected changes to the consolidation law have sparked renewed interest throughout the state in pursuing district mergers.

Near Augusta, for example, the Winthrop and Fayette school systems on Thursday night moved to form an alternative organizational structure that would enroll 975 students, according to state education data.

Both those towns are facing penalties after their voters turned down a consolidation arrangement with the Maranacook-area schools in January 2009.

"It was very important from the beginning that we not make any major changes to the law, which the voters validated back in November," Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin said. "But, this allows some modest changes ... that give some flexibility to districts that find themselves in special and unique circumstances."

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com