I am an attorney who has advised and represented Maine school units from Kittery to Fort Kent since 1975 and former chairman of the Maine Council of School Board attorneys. I respectfully urge my fellow Mainers to support repeal of the current, gravely flawed school consolidation law. Vote yes on Question 3 so we can leave it to the wisdom of Maine people at the local level to devise the best uses of limited resources to educate their children.

The current law was supposed to provide “equitable educational opportunity for all students to demonstrate achievement of the content standards of the State’s system of learning results.” It was supposed to provide “rigorous academic programs” and “uniformity in the delivery of academic programs.” It was supposed to provide “a greater uniformity of tax rates for the support of schools” and “the creation of cost-efficient organizational structures.”

With enrollments falling and resources precious, these were lofty sounding and appropriate goals. But have they been achieved or will they ever? The evidence says no. Is the new system operating fairly and efficiently? No. It is not too late to acknowledge the flaws in the original law and repeal it. Return the decision-making process to the people locally rather than imposing a “one size fits all,” top down, big government solution on everyone with the heavy weight of financial penalties that hurt a large minority of Maine students unfairly.

Where do we stand today? According to the Maine Department of Education’s Web site, 48 percent of school units are not in compliance with the law!

This is shocking when you consider that many school units were effectively exempted from the law because they had large enough student populations before the consolidation mandate. This is shocking when you consider how hard good people have worked statewide to try to come into compliance. This happened because many communities found that not only would consolidation not save them money, it would cost them money. They were better off suffering the penalties.

I personally worked with several units that submitted consolidation plans showing no savings and even cost increases after “leveling up” labor contracts and other cost factors. The Department rejected these plans because the law required that the plan had to show cost savings. When the writers of the plans called DOE to ask for guidance they were told simply to show the avoided penalties as cost savings! This happened repeatedly. Can you imagine: the only “savings” for many units was the avoidance of government imposed penalties?

If there is anything that more clearly shows the irrationality of this law I don’t know what it is.

The state is standing ready to impose $5.8 million in forfeitures of GPA to the noncompliant units, representing 30,865 students or 16.19 percent of all children attending Maine public schools. How does this financial punishment for the votes of their communities advance the law’s stated goal of assuring an equitable educational opportunity for all students? These are largely students from small school units, units that often bear a heavy burden in trying to provide a quality education to small populations. This financial punishment will hardly help.

The imposition of these penalties is also working to enhance disparities between urban and rural schools, and the invidious “North/South” conflict people identify in our state. Is that what we want to achieve with consolidation?

The first penalty in the law for noncompliant units is the halving of their subsidy for administration from $210 per student to $105 per student. This is without any foundation in facts or any actual analysis of what the impact of consolidation or non-consolidation will be on those costs. The statute assumes it costs the same for administration in all units, belying the theory behind the law that consolidation will reduce costs, and then imposes this arbitrary penalty. In a unit with 600 students, for example, this is a penalty of $63,000, the cost of perhaps one or two teachers. Is this rational? Is this fair? Does it promote equality of educational opportunities?

The second major penalty in the law is the 2 percent tax rate increase for the non compliant units, upping their expected mill rate for education from a projected 6.55 to 6.68. In a town with $100 million valuation this amounts to an annual $13,000 increase in local taxes. Does that achieve “a greater uniformity of tax rates for the support of schools”?

Hardly. In fact it is probably unconstitutional.

Forced consolidation was an answer looking for a question. If the state had scare resources and could not fund the 55 percent promise, it should have said so honestly and left the solutions to the local level. Existing laws for school administrative districts, school unions, and interlocal cooperation to share services or purchasing would have been available to do what needed to be done. But the planning would have reflected decisions at the lowest levels where the stakeholders had the most direct voice. It is not too late to make a course correction, repeal the consolidation laws, and allow the people to decide.

Bryan M. Dench is an attorney with Skelton, Tainter and Abbott in Auburn.