PUBLIC HEARING TESTIMONY
IN OPPOSITION TO
LD 1283: An Act To Reform the School Budget Validation Process, Senator Weston;
...amends the school budget approval process by allowing a budget to be approved at a school board meeting rather than a district-wide meeting, and then go directly to referendum vote. The bill also changes slightly the wording on the required referendum if a school budget exceeds the maximum state and local spending target.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Senator Alfond, Representative Sutherland, distinguished members of the Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs:
My name is Brian Hubbell. I am the chair of the Mount Desert Island Regional School System, an Alternative Organization Structure constituted of eight municipalities of Bar Harbor, Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, Swan's Island, Tremont, Trenton, and the four-town CSD that administers the Mount Desert Island Regional High School.
I am here today in opposition to LD 1283: An Act To Reform the School Budget Validation Process, -- at least in opposition to what I understand to be a provision within the bill as written, although perhaps not in opposition to the bill in overall concept.
- While this bill references only RSUs, budget approval process for an AOS such as MDI's is keyed to the same section of the law governing budget approval for RSUs.
- A section of this bill appears to remove a district's option, after the trial period of three years, to vote to discontinue the use of a budget validation referendum.
- As the validation referendum causes towns within an AOS additional uncertainty and certain additional expense, we would object to having this option taken away from our voters. As long as the budget validation referendum remains an option for voters, we would support this bill.
- As minimum receivers of GPA, we depend almost entirely on our taxpayers for their support of school budgets. In practice, our schools earn the trust of taxpayers through a long and scrupulous sequence of open discussions about the school budgets. In Bar Harbor, for example, a budget depends on preliminary review and ultimate endorsement first from the School Committee, then from an education sub-committee of the Warrant Committee, then from the full Warrant Committee, then from the Town Council, and then finally from the legislative body of the Town Meeting. Line-by-line and cost-center by cost-center, to receive the approval of each respective body, our administrators have to explain every programming decision and every percentage of increase or decrease in detail. While the process is arduous, by the end it is rare for any controversy about spending to remain.
- If districts like ours lose these forums, which involve taxpayers in not only the discussion but also in a capacity to effect real budget changes, it would be a step towards alienating citizens from their budgets and this effective process of community decision-making.
- Last, it seems cynical for the state to determine, on one hand, that the taxpayers in our towns have deep enough pockets to support their schools substantially without state aid and, on the other hand, rule that they somehow lack the wherewithal to decide responsibly how to approve the spending without compulsion and constraint from above.
