GOVERNOR Paul LePage speaks at the University of Maine Presque Isle on June 14, 2016.
For Maine’s government, “revenue is not the problem, the problem is the spending,” LePage said early in his remarks at the University of Maine Presque Isle on June 14, 2016 as a few people in attendance nodded their heads in agreement.
In the second of three town halls LePage held in Aroostook County, about 70 people showed up to hear his thoughts on everything from jobs and taxes to addiction treatment and education.
The same day, voters in Castle Hill, Chapman, Mapleton and Westfield turned down a budget for School Administration District 1 that would have raised property taxes by 9 percent. A little more than 63 percent of the district voters voted against the budget, sending officials back to the proverbial drawing board to figure out how to pay for all-day kindergarten, contractual pay increases and special education needs.
As school district property taxes increase, even as enrollment falls in many places, Gov. LePage said he wants to redesign Maine’s education policy with the aim of simplifying funding and administration.
“Not enough money in school budgets goes into the classroom. Too much goes into administration,” LePage said.
In Maine, which has some of the highest per-student costs in the country, five percent of K-12 education spending is devoted to administration, compared to the national average of 2 percent, LePage said. Consolidating the state’s 127 school districts, reducing administrative staff and adopting a statewide teachers payment system could lower overall spending, he argued.
“I believe that we need 26 school districts and a state teachers contract instead of all the communities having their own,” LePage said.
“You’ll never reach 55 percent,” he said, responding to a question about why Maine has not met a state law requiring the state government to fund just above half of education costs.
“To get to 55 percent, have one state union contract for teachers, let the state administer the teachers, let the communities hire and fire teachers, and let the state set the average class size,” he said.
LePage suggested that local districts should actually have to cover more of their own costs in order to realize the true cost and have an incentive to operate more efficiently. “Towns would be willing to give up the color of their jerseys and their sports teams if they had to pay for every penny,” he said.
“If you allowed us to pay for the teachers and classrooms and you have the school board go to the town to ask for all the other extras, I think we would drop from 127 superintendents down to 26 real quick,” LePage said.
Despite his ongoing disputes with lawmakers on a number of issues, the second term governor said he is hopeful about finding common ground on education policy in his time left in office.
“If you sit all the stakeholders down at a table … and put a sign that says, ‘Every decision has to be for the kids,’ we could solve the education dilemma in three hours.”
