Trust us. We don’t like writing, or thinking, about the state of Maine’s budget any more than the average person. (Especially during the early days of tax season.) But we’re expected to ask the tough questions, so here’s one:

Is having the state fund 55 percent of education still a good idea?

It’s a query based on certain solid facts. From fiscal year 2006 through 2009, state spending on education has increased 37 percent, while the Consumer Price Index rose 11.4 percent. Between 2005 and 2009, total state funding for education increased $583.3 million.

And education, according to state budget data, drove 65 percent of the total $912 million in general fund spending increases in that same five-year period.

Enforcing 55 percent was the product of a 2004 citizen initiative, which only sought to enforce a promise made by the state years ago. It was billed as providing tax relief, but the enacting legislation, LD 1, many have since observed, didn’t specifically call for routing money back to taxpayers.

And, this legislation also created the Essential Programs and Services funding model. This, often subjective, one-size-fits-all approach has fit some districts, but caused discomfort in many others.

Budget-crafters on the state level bemoan the 55 percent mandate, because it makes education spending control inflexible. It is the single-greatest cost driver, they say, yet the voter-driven mandate and subsequent legislation give bean-counters few remedies when the red ink rises.

This, in turn, birthed school district consolidation as an option for cost savings. We still support consolidation’s intent – reduced administrative costs, and increased efficiencies – and its expected short-term savings – some $36.5 million in the current biannual budget.

Yet no further statements are necessary to describe the heartburn consolidation is causing across Maine. Some critics say the plan would increase local education costs, which would even more completely undermine LD 1’s aims.

So, school spending is way up. Property tax bills are not, correspondingly, way down. In tough fiscal times, the education mandate pushes state cuts onto its “essential programs and services,” without any guarantees that the dollars preserved for education are passed along as tax relief.

We cannot forget, as well, that two citizen initiatives to cap spending – the Palesky Tax Cap and the Taxpayer Bill of Rights – were defeated after LD 1. If this was the right plan from the beginning, perhaps these subsequent and severe alternatives wouldn’t have arisen.

This is conjecture, of course. But, then again, so is the basis for our question: is 55 percent really right for Maine?