A school funding plan going to voters on Tuesday would give coastal and southern towns the most money.

Calculations for the 2003-04 school year showed that Portland would get the largest increase: $10.6 million more in state aid, up 106 percent.

For South Portland: $5.1 million more, a 180 percent increase.

For Scarborough: $4 million more, an 88 percent increase.

Comparatively poorer towns that already receive state help would see much smaller gains. Lewiston would get $3.8 million more, up 19 percent. Auburn would get $3.4 million more, up 24 percent. The area’s other school systems would see increases of $108,000 to $3 million.

It’s a phenomenon that many hadn’t expected, even some at the Maine Municipal Association. As chief backer of the proposal, the MMA did the calculations.

“We were kind of surprised when we ran the numbers, that the big (state aid) receivers didn’t get a lot more,” said Kate DuFour, legislative advocate for the MMA.

Tuesday’s Question 1 asks voters whether they want the state to pay 55 percent of public education, including 100 percent of the costs of special education. The MMA says the proposal would lower property taxes because towns would get more help paying for schools.

But because the 55 percent figure is a statewide average, not a guaranteed share for each school system, some towns would get less from the state while others would get more.

The calculations would likely become even more confusing in a few years when the state starts using a new formula to fund schools.

More money

Data posted on the MMA’s Web site this spring detail what each school system would have gotten if Question 1 had been in effect this year. The numbers are not likely to change much next year.

Using the existing funding formula, the MMA boosted the average state aid from 42 percent to 55 percent, including a total reimbursement for special education.

School systems with high special education costs saw a big jump. Rangeley, for example, got $147,000 more, a 302 percent increase. All of it was because of special education.

Towns that currently receive very little state aid also got big boosts.

The state sets a threshold for how much poor towns must spend for education, funding the amount beyond that threshold. This gives more money to school systems with low property values and high enrollment. The MMA plan dramatically lowered the threshold, allowing a greater number of towns to get more state aid.

For example, Beddington, a tiny town in Washington County, sends all of its students to a neighboring town. It received the smallest share of state aid in Maine this year, getting less than 3 percent of its budget – about $800. According to the MMA, Question 1 would have given the town $6,000 for education, a 634 percent increase. The town has no special education costs.

Cape Elizabeth, a wealthy coastal town, also gets a low share of state aid. It would have received $2.4 million more this year, a 134 percent increase. Half of that is from special education.

Town Manager Michael McGovern, who backs Question 1, acknowledged his town’s affluent reputation. But Cape Elizabeth could use the big state aid increase and the tax relief that would come with it.

Such an increase would lower the town’s property tax rate by more than 25 percent, from $14.40 per $1,000 of valuation to $10.65.

“I know no one expects sympathy for Cape Elizabeth,” he said. “But we have people who have been living here since the 1950s, 1960s, and they’re hurting.”

Surprise

Towns that already get a good percentage of state aid – those with low property values, high enrollment and high special education costs – generally saw much less of a boost under the MMA’s plan.

Wales, a small rural town in Western Maine, gets $1.1 million in state aid, almost three-fourths of its budget. Under the MMA’s plan, it would get about $108,000 more, an increase of 10 percent.

While Cape Elizabeth’s tax rate would be lowered by 25 percent, Wales’ rate would drop by 8 percent, from $24.50 to $22.50.

Although the MMA’s data would likely be relevant next year if Question 1 passed, no one was sure how future budgets would be affected.

State law requires that a new funding formula be phased in between 2005 and 2009. Called Essential Programs and Services, the new formula outlines what schools should be spending their money on and defines which costs the state will help pay.

Since the details of the plan are not complete, neither MMA nor state officials could calculate how Question 1 would affect it. And people on both sides say special education, which would be totally reimbursed under Question 1 but could be only partially reimbursed under Essential Programs and Services, adds even more confusion.

Because of the lingering questions, some voters back a new state law instead of the MMA’s proposal. The law, passed by the Legislature this spring, phases in a 55-percent funding plan beginning in a few years, the same time Essential Programs and Services begins. No one has calculated the law’s impact on schools.

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