This Wednesday, the Regulatory Fairness and Reform Committee will be at Southern Maine Community College from 3-6 pm. I hope you can come to the public hearing. Then on Thursday, the Governor will host a joint convention (both House and Senate come together) to unveil his 2012-2013 Biennial Budget. Much more on this next week.

Community Event
Monday morning, most of the Portland delegation and I met with Portland’s Superintendent Dr. Jim Morse. We had a productive meeting discussing the Portland School Budget, funding from the state, and policy changes that may occur from the new administration in Augusta.

The two biggest topics are the overall Portland School budget shortfall and the potential cuts to the English Learning Language (ELL). In order to talk about both, here’s some background information. The Essential Program and Services (EPS) funding formula sets the total cost of K-12 education for the state of Maine. Over sixty components make up the EPS formula, with the two biggest factors being a community’s total land valuation and the district’s student population. Currently, the City of Portland receives around $14 million of our $90 million budget from the state.

The 2012-2013 Biennial Budget is facing a shortfall. Estimates place it around $800 million worth of cuts, and it is likely that a large chunk of that will come from education and health and human services. In the meeting, we talked about Portland’s $6 million budget shortfall. $4.1 of this is due to federal recovery funds ending in June. $1.1 are cuts to special education funding, and $900,000 is from cuts to the No Child Left Behind program. The only good news is that the Portland School Committee and Superintendent have received $1.8 million dollars from the 2010 Federal Jobs Bill to help offset our $6 million loss.

The ELL cuts could stem from a change to the EPS formula. If this change occurs, Portland stands to lose another $2 million. These cuts are being suggested because both Lewiston and Portland have been unable to submit their total costs involved in the ELL programs. From this, the state believes that both districts are not using their entire distributions. A bill will be introduced to cut ELL funding, and I will keep you up-to-date when it is scheduled. We also discussed teacher retirement, vocational and special education, and the potential for establishing charter schools in Maine.

Inside Augusta: Supplemental Budget
In a late session last Friday night, Feb 4th, the Appropriations Committee unanimously voted to approve the supplemental budget. The budget, sent to the legislature by Governor LePage, is a $151 million spending bill to cover revenue shortfalls from the 2010-2011 budget. Legislative leadership is always present during budget discussions, but we are there only to weigh in when situations arise that cannot be resolved. It was terrific seeing the entire committee come together unanimously. It made me hopeful that Democrats and Republicans can work together to forge many common-sense solutions to help all Maine people this session.

The unanimous vote came after a series of concessions by Republicans on the committee to protect the most vulnerable in Maine. The changes included preserving parental choice in the Child Development Services system, restoring $1 million in revenue sharing to help struggling cities and towns make their budgets, and $600,000 to support dairy farmers in Maine. One signature provision of the governor’s budget that remained was a nearly $70 million payment to hospitals to pay back debt. This payment makes us eligible for $248 million in federal funds for additional debt service.

The supplemental budget will likely come up for a vote today.

Bills Submitted
This is the fifth in a series of describing bills I have introduced this legislative session. This week, I’ll review two more, one relating to school attendance and achievement, and another to invest in our water and sewer infrastructure.

An Act To Promote School Attendance and Increase School Achievement
During my first term, I introduced a bill that became law that created a stakeholder’s group to analyze the dropout rate and our expulsion standards to determine the best way to achieve excellence in our public schools. That group met for over a year, and released its report towards the end of last year. This bill takes all of the recommendations from that report and proposes it as one bill. The emphasis looks at policies that affect at-risk and drop-out students. The stakeholders group made recommendations regarding suspension, expulsion, zero-tolerance policies and age requirements that often make it challenging for students to stay in school.

An Act To Invest in Water and Sewer Infrastructure To Protect Public Health and To Facilitate the Expansion and Growth of Business
This $25 million bond issue proposes to repair and reconstruct water and sewer systems that the Department of Environmental Protection considers in greatest need of attention and greatest threat to the public health of Maine citizens and the expansion of business. By enacting this bond, we would be eligible for an additional $125 million in federal funds.

Closing
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what I have listed here, anything that’s going on in Augusta, or whatever else that’s on your mind. Please feel free to contact me with anything you need.

-Justin