Each year state bureaucrats grind $1 billion through a Dr. Suess-like behemoth and call it the school funding formula.

The process is an albatross of inefficiency.

And once touted as a national model of fairness, the formula no longer creates educational equity among the haves and the have-nots.

In a report issued last week, the Maine Center for Economic Policy found that a decade of wrangling among school districts and lawmakers has created inequities.

A detailed analysis by the independent research group concluded that the formula fails to equally support all students, regardless of where they live.

State revenue shortfalls of the early 1990s led to flat funding and across-the-board cuts. Those measures have distorted the formula’s outcome.

It is further skewed by calculations for special education, transportation, debt, a circuit-breaker mechanism, cushions for school districts that get less state aid from year to year – and the addition of a household income factor.

We believe there is a simpler, more efficient way to manage the state’s largest spending program.

When the formula was adopted in 1969 it was based on a simple concept: Use state taxes to give towns and cities with low property-tax bases a boost for their schools. A child in remote Eustis could get the same quality education as a child in Cape Elizabeth.

A town’s inability to pay for good schools would not unfairly burden the aspirations of its children.

But that theory has not held true. In the 2000-01 school year, per-pupil spending ranged from $7,587 in coastal schools to $5,742 in rural inland schools.

What’s fair about that?

Not much.

We join the Maine Center for Economic Policy in calling for substantial reforms in the way the state divvies up school aid.

Legislators and school officials ought to stop squabbling over whose slice of pie is bigger. It’s time to get to work on a streamlined formula that reflects the intent of equal opportunity.

Even if it ain’t broke, fix it.


Too fancy


The Mechanic Falls Town Hall needs a few costly repairs: new heating and electrical systems and handicapped accessibility. Townspeople and leaders debated for 10 years about spending money on a fix-up. Taxes were high and rising and people didn’t want to spend the money.

Finally this year, a $670,000 project got the go-ahead. But when unexpected expenses arose and bids came in too high, leaders were able to save $89,000 by making a few cosmetic changes.

They would have wooden stairways instead of steel and concrete, a less expensive wiring system, plainer doors and trim and no windows in the stairwell.

With people losing their homes to high taxes, town leaders should have kept their plan plain and simple in the first place.
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