MEA: How to avoid education cuts

What's there to do at a time when state revenues are falling short of projections and there's reluctance to cut out education funding that's seen as crucial?

Mark Gray has an answer, though it's not one many want to hear.

The Legislature's Education Committee on Tuesday invited representatives from the Maine Principals' Association, the Maine School Management Association and the Maine Education Association to the table so they could offer the lawmakers input on addressing the state's fiscal crunch.

Gray, executive director of the Maine Education Association, the 25,000-member teachers' union, suggested the state offer incentives for more senior teachers to retire, more time between teacher certification renewals, "maximum flexibility" for schools' use of federal funds and "no additional mandates" on schools as they grapple with tight finances.

"We're in the process of consolidating school (districts) and we are not yet done," Gray told committee members. "We would request the opportunity to catch our breath as far as mandates go."

Also, Gray said, it would help schools to temporarily raise the state sales tax.

"This is not the time to back away from funding the priority that our schools hold for this state," he said, citing support for L.D. 1 -- a mandate voters passed in 2005 that required that the state fund 55 percent of education costs -- in polls.

Gray couldn't help but raise both Republican and Democratic eyebrows.

"I can tell you, it's not going to happen," said Sen. Elizabeth Schneider, D-Orono. "We are facing very difficult challenges, and people are strapped for cash. To suggest that people would support a tax increase, I think, is fanciful."