Baldacci vetoes fixes to consolidation law

Kennebec Journal update, April 7, 2008

(excerpt) The bill, L.D. 1932, would have allowed consolidating school districts to devise individual cost-sharing formulas to base individual towns’ tax contributions to their regional district on measures other than property value.

The bill also would have allowed districts that currently receive a minimum special education subsidy to continue to receive it when they consolidate and would have created a single budget format for all districts.

Legislators had also amended the bill to allow a “super union” school-district structure, a provision Baldacci opposed.

In a statement, Baldacci said such a structure “would encourage more bureaucracy and allow for the expansion of an inefficient means of school governance. Maine would likely end up with more school districts, not fewer.”