AUGUSTA – Timelines have slipped repeatedly in the current session of the Maine Legislature, on the advancement of budget legislation, tax reform and the creation of a special prosperity committee.

Among major items that have been backed up is one central to Gov. John Baldacci’s $6.4 billion biennial budget package – an overhaul of Maine’s sprawling network of local school systems.

Extensively reworked by legislators twice since Baldacci first unveiled his own plan, the latest version of school system consolidation remains in legislative limbo.

Pegged in the budget for savings of $36.5 million, the new plan developed by an Appropriations Committee subcommittee would scrap Baldacci’s original proposal for establishing 26 regional units and, in a less drastic reduction from the current number of 152 school administrative systems, set up 80 districts. New districts would provide instruction for at least 2,500 students.

The subcommittee plan lays out an ambitious schedule for implementation by next year.

With the full Legislature in recess, the Appropriations Committee took the past week off. Debate over consolidation continues, but on the sidelines.

“No local vote,” the Maine Municipal Association declared in a skeptical analysis in its Legislative Bulletin.

“Like the governor’s original plan, the subcommittee’s version begins by abolishing most school systems as of July 1, 2008, and then attempts to create the process of reconstructing new school districts between now and then. At no time under the subcommittee’s proposal will the voters within the newly created school systems be allowed a vote to ratify the creation of the new local school government they will be compelled thereafter to support,” the MMA analysis said.

Others were more positive, including Maine State Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors, whose group has been working in alliance with the MMA until now.

“We have put ourselves in a little different place,” Connors says. “I found this proposal really attractive.”

Touting the desirability of better schooling and stricter spending controls, Connors says, “From Day 1, this issue has been an issue front and foremost with the business community.”

The Baldacci administration, meanwhile, has been in consultation with Connors and other business representatives exploring ways to promote the new plan.

State Education Department spokesman David Connerty-Marin, who said the administration has yet to take a formal position, has circulated a memo this month on “the plan” that offers talking points on the need for change and “benefits of school administrative reform and the subcommittee plan.”

Describing it as an outgrowth of discussions with business representatives, Connerty-Marin said the memo was a group product that did not reflect departmental views on every point.

“It’s not a political campaign,” he also said, making a distinction between efforts to promote legislation and organizing to seek passage of a referendum question.

The April 2 memo outlines a week-by-week agenda for action.

“Thank you everyone for a very successful meeting this morning,” it begins. “This is what I believe we all agreed to:

“Today, and this week: E-mail to all chambers and numerous business associations with a call to arms. Namely, contact your legislators (starting right away), send letters or op eds to the newspaper (starting right away – will take a week or more to get printed), and be aware of a tentative lobbying day at the State House later this month.”

The memo went on to designate tasks for the rest of the month. The week of April 9 was to be used to stage a governor’s press conference on a Business Executive Advisers Initiative, and the week of April 16 was designated as a time for a “press conference with business people” and when “business executives and owners do the radio call-in shows.”

Finally, it set a “lobbying day, tentatively April 24.”

As with things within the Legislature itself thus far, that schedule has slipped.

Connerty-Marin said discussions of a promotional effort did not include a wider involvement of the governor’s office.

“I just think it would be derelict if we didn’t work with people who express an interest in something (that would) benefit children and taxpayers. … This is the stuff I’m doing anyway,” he said.

The MMA analysis focused in part on local control.

“A clear legislative prejudice can be discerned on this point,” it said. “Key legislators in this process describe any local vote in the negative, as an ‘opt-out’ vote. A local vote is more accurately described positively, as a vote of ratification. Until now, whenever new local governments have been created, there has always been a vote of ratification.”

The memo to proponents, meanwhile, offers a possible response.

“Q: What about local control?

“A: Yes, what about local control? What do you control locally? ‘Local control’ simply means ‘status quo,’ and the status quo is not sustainable or acceptable.”

The memo also cites a couple of things not to do.

It characterizes the term “school consolidation” as inaccurate and counsels:

“Don’t point to other states as examples. There are good examples from other states, but people in Maine do not want to hear about other states; they see Maine as unique and do not want to turn to other states for examples; also, they will pick apart performance in other states to show it is a bad model.”

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