Dianne Tilton: Funding formula the real threat to rural education
Bangor Daily News, May 5, 2008
(excerpt) The chronic problem is the Essential Programs and Services funding formula, which determines how much the state pays and how much local communities pay. It is the EPS formula that assumes because Washington County and similarly watery areas in Maine have valuable land (an artificial measure of wealth), we must also have the money to pay a higher share of our education costs. It is the EPS formula that needs to be fixed.
I don’t know how EPS can be changed to bring more equity to poorer, rural school districts, but we must find a way. State revenue will continue to shrink, and more and more of our costs for education will be shifted to the local property tax payer. Until EPS is changed, our rural school districts will suffer, no matter how large they are, and any savings realized by reorganizing will be overwhelmed by the local money we are expected to raise, whether we can or not.
I hope the battle-weary champions of small schools and local control can regroup, soldier on and fight to change EPS, the most threatening enemy of all.
(excerpt) The chronic problem is the Essential Programs and Services funding formula, which determines how much the state pays and how much local communities pay. It is the EPS formula that assumes because Washington County and similarly watery areas in Maine have valuable land (an artificial measure of wealth), we must also have the money to pay a higher share of our education costs. It is the EPS formula that needs to be fixed.
I don’t know how EPS can be changed to bring more equity to poorer, rural school districts, but we must find a way. State revenue will continue to shrink, and more and more of our costs for education will be shifted to the local property tax payer. Until EPS is changed, our rural school districts will suffer, no matter how large they are, and any savings realized by reorganizing will be overwhelmed by the local money we are expected to raise, whether we can or not.
I hope the battle-weary champions of small schools and local control can regroup, soldier on and fight to change EPS, the most threatening enemy of all.
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