State Backs Leeway on Cost-sharing Among Towns

Ellsworth American, October 11, 2007

(excerpt) Gendron said she will recommend the regional planning committees, which formed among interested communities to help create new districts, be empowered to recommend cost-sharing formulas when the ones in the law make local costs go up.

The reasons for the apparent cost shifts appear myriad and may be partially addressed when all school systems are using the same budgeting methods, making expenditures easier to compare.

Some are due to a requirement in the new law that dictates how costs are shared, both for those expenditures outlined in the state’s Essential Programs and Service (EPS) formula — designed to prepare all students to successfully graduate from high school — and those above EPS, for those districts that choose to spend more than is required.

The school consolidation law says all costs will be shared in the same way, meaning property-rich towns would pay more.