AUGUSTA (AP) – Potential savings were on the minds of members of the Legislature’s Education Committee on Sunday as they continued to work through the weekend on possible ways to consolidate Maine’s far-flung school systems.

Aiming to provide a report to the budget-weighing Appropriations Committee by Thursday, the Education panel examined an array of expenditure analyses based on possible adjustments in school administrative unit sizes with an eye toward finding pronounced efficiencies.

Gov. John Baldacci’s $6.4 billion biennial General Fund budget, which is the subject of Appropriations Committee public hearings, includes a plan for reducing 152 district administrations to 26 units. Administration officials have booked $36.5 million in savings from such a consolidation for fiscal 2009 and other proposals have also been brought forward.

Weekend discussions ranged from the comparative merits of collaboration versus consolidation to potential timelines for major changes in the statewide network of school units.

“I think we have put things on the table, to say the least, today,” Education Committee House Chairwoman Jacqueline Norton, D-Bangor, told her colleagues.

Baldacci’s original streamlining plan envisioned not only a significant reduction in the number of school superintendents but also increases in class sizes for middle and high school students.

Last week, state Education Commissioner Susan Gendron announced the administration was withdrawing the proposal to boost some student-teacher ratios.

That change would not affect overall budget savings estimates but any reductions in savings directly linked to consolidation or regionalization could cause substantial reshaping of the governor’s budget package.

The package includes a controversial proposal for a tobacco tax increase that would produce about $66 million a year and bring the tax per-pack of cigarettes in Maine to $3 – the nation’s highest among the states.

The Legislature’s Taxation Committee, meanwhile, has undertaken talks on possible tax system changes that have zeroed in not only on local property taxes but also on the state sales and individual income taxes.

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