I don't want to take up time talking about the problem. We all know what the problem is; education is way too costly. But, I do want to provide some details about Governor Baldacci's education consolidation plan, and why I think this is a bad proposal for the people of Maine. Simply attacking a detrimental policy is only half the job, though. I also want to give you some information about a consolidation plan that achieves our goal of reducing costs, but won't have the negative impacts that we can expect from the Governor's plan.

Governor Baldacci would take Maine's 290 local school districts and morph them into 26 regional centers. All local school boards would be eliminated and replaced with 26 regional advisory boards of no more than 15 people. A principal would be required for every school, regardless of how many students are attending that school, and $3.6 million would be spent to increase teacher salaries. This last point seems particularly interesting, since another key aspect of the Governor's plan includes the elimination of 600 teaching positions.

The Governor's proposal, put simply, is a bad idea. The regional centers he would create range in size from about 1,800 to almost 20,000. The same procedures would be in place for each center regardless of student enrollment, and, to put the whole thing into perspective a little more, some of these centers would have twice as many students as a Maine State Representative has constituents! For example, Auburn and Poland, two towns in my Senate district, would be grouped in Region #18, which is expected to have 16,429 students, and New Gloucester, another one of my towns, would be grouped in Region #23, which will have 19,996 students. And, with the new advisory boards having no more than 15 members, there would even be situations where districts with 18 or 20 towns would have an advisory board without all towns represented. This is an iron-fisted measure that would be instituted from the top down, and would be a major assault on local control.

The problems with the Governor's plan don't end there. The elimination of 600 teaching positions seems inconsistent with the plan to invest $3.6 million to increase teacher salaries, and is certainly in contrast to the Governor's claims to be working towards creating more jobs for Mainers. Where are the current education majors in college going to look for jobs once they graduate? Certainly not Maine.

When the Governor says we can achieve savings in education through the consolidation of services, his words could not be truer. His plan, however, is simply too flawed to be effective.

But, we can achieve major savings through rational policies that would have school districts, as they currently exist, join together to collectively purchase certain services, resulting in significantly less costs of delivery and implementation.

A plan has been introduced, modeled after Maine Heritage Policy Center's regionalization plan, which would establish 26 State chartered Educational Cooperatives. These cooperatives would have current school districts join together to collectively identify appropriate vendors from which products and services would be purchased in bulk. Accounting, payroll services, technology purchases and maintenance, food services, transportation and other such services would be contracted out to companies and utilized throughout the entire region.

Not only will this plan address the high costs of administering education in Maine, but, unlike the Governor's plan, it preserves local control and reduces costs on a per-district level. Existing school administrative districts would remain unchanged and continue to oversee their faculty and staff, develop a curriculum and create and implement a school budget. And, unlike the Governor's regional advisory boards, the cooperatives would be managed by a distinct entity composed of one member from each administrative district's school board.

The way Maine's system of education is administered will undoubtedly be changed in the near future. I am certainly in favor of reducing the cost of education in our state, but I want to accomplish savings through rational policies that will achieve positive results without sacrificing community involvement. The Governor's plan is a bad idea that will result in negative consequences, and I cannot support it. The proposal modeled after the Maine Heritage Policy Center's plan can achieve the results we need without forcing our communities to sacrifice their control. We need to change, but lets make sure we do it right. Senator Lois Snowe-Mello represents District 15, which includes Auburn, Durham, New Gloucester and Poland.