Greenlaw: School Consolidation Still Unacceptable
Ellsworth American, May 1, 2008
(excerpt) LD 2323, An Act to Remove Barriers to the Reorganization of School Administrative Units, was passed literally in the closing hours of the legislative session. As predicted, a draft of this legislation surfaced on Monday, April 14, one week after the Governor vetoed LD 1932, which was the original school consolidation “fix-it” bill as amended by the Damon super union concept. The Governor didn’t like the name “super union,” and the commissioner did not like having teacher and staff negotiations done at the local school board level. In the place of super unions, school units may now utilize a provision in the municipal statutes called quasi-municipal agreements. It is my understanding that it is only a play on words and nothing substantive has changed from the super union concept.
Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the week beginning April 14 on the third floor of the Statehouse meeting with legislators and other constituencies trying to gain support for this revision of LD 1932. Judy Sproule, a member of the Trenton School Committee, and this writer met with the commissioner at the request of Sen. Dennis Damon (D-Hancock County) together with Brian Hubbell, Gail Marshall and Paul Murphy of the Mount Desert Island school committees. The commissioner is a very accomplished negotiator and advocate for school consolidation. She had an answer for every question posed to her. When we questioned her about collective bargaining at the regional level rather than local level, she told us that the department’s experience had been that negotiations done at the SAD level were less expensive than those done at other school levels. We’ll be interested to review information that substantiates that contention. We asked her why the provision for withdrawal from regional school units had been removed from this bill. Her answer was that she had been told to keep the bill “simple.” She said that the withdrawal procedure could be added next session. However, when Sen. Kevin Raye (R-Washington County) attempted to amend the bill to provide for a withdrawal provision, the Senate killed that amendment. It doesn’t make any sense to say that you would agree to a withdrawal procedure in the next session of the Legislature, and then defeat an amendment to that effect now.
(excerpt) LD 2323, An Act to Remove Barriers to the Reorganization of School Administrative Units, was passed literally in the closing hours of the legislative session. As predicted, a draft of this legislation surfaced on Monday, April 14, one week after the Governor vetoed LD 1932, which was the original school consolidation “fix-it” bill as amended by the Damon super union concept. The Governor didn’t like the name “super union,” and the commissioner did not like having teacher and staff negotiations done at the local school board level. In the place of super unions, school units may now utilize a provision in the municipal statutes called quasi-municipal agreements. It is my understanding that it is only a play on words and nothing substantive has changed from the super union concept.
Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the week beginning April 14 on the third floor of the Statehouse meeting with legislators and other constituencies trying to gain support for this revision of LD 1932. Judy Sproule, a member of the Trenton School Committee, and this writer met with the commissioner at the request of Sen. Dennis Damon (D-Hancock County) together with Brian Hubbell, Gail Marshall and Paul Murphy of the Mount Desert Island school committees. The commissioner is a very accomplished negotiator and advocate for school consolidation. She had an answer for every question posed to her. When we questioned her about collective bargaining at the regional level rather than local level, she told us that the department’s experience had been that negotiations done at the SAD level were less expensive than those done at other school levels. We’ll be interested to review information that substantiates that contention. We asked her why the provision for withdrawal from regional school units had been removed from this bill. Her answer was that she had been told to keep the bill “simple.” She said that the withdrawal procedure could be added next session. However, when Sen. Kevin Raye (R-Washington County) attempted to amend the bill to provide for a withdrawal provision, the Senate killed that amendment. It doesn’t make any sense to say that you would agree to a withdrawal procedure in the next session of the Legislature, and then defeat an amendment to that effect now.
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