Transparency in school budgeting a good thing

Portland Press Herald, April 12, 2007

(excerpt) The plan, still taking its final form, calls for 80 Regional School Units of about 2,500 students each. RSUs in Maine's far-flung quarters would be allowed to have fewer kids per unit.

Under the revised approach, school districts would be allowed to create local advisory committees, something that might be attractive in a rural region where the district encompasses 10 or 15 towns.

If a school district's board of directors agreed, local advisory boards could be given the authority for approving local school budgets, an approach similar to that used in Maine's school unions.

The new blueprint also calls for more transparency -- and therefore accountability -- in the school budgeting process. Budget validation by voters isn't new in Maine. Several dozen of Maine's existing 290 school units already do it.

But in the latest version of school reform, voting on budgets would be the rule, at least at first. The new, standardized RSU budgets would all go out for voter approval in fiscal year 2009, the first year of the new system.

After FY 2010 or FY 2011, lawmakers would review the need for annual budget referendums.