The budget's consolidation connection

While the fate of most amendments to Maine's school district consolidation mandate hangs in the balance, one key change to the law is now part of the state's two-year budget Gov. John Baldacci signed into law Thursday.

Rep. Stacy Fitts, a Pittsfield Republican, is touting the reprieve he pushed through for his local school district: School Administrative District 53. SAD 53 was one of 17 districts that voted in favor of consolidation only to have their proposed partners reject the merger. As a result, no consolidated district was formed, exposing all the potential partners -- including those that did what the state Department of Education wanted them to do -- to cuts in their state subsidies as penalties.

Fitts filed legislation to exempt SAD 53 and the districts like it from consolidation-related penalties for one year. That change in the law made it into the budget, giving those 17 districts another year to find merger partners and consolidate.

"It is profoundly unfair to penalize schools and taxpayers who tried to do the right thing," Fitts said in a statement released by the House Republican Office. "Now that my bill has been included in the budget, we'll have an extra year."

Fitts' proposal essentially sailed through the Legislature, unlike most other bids to exempt some districts from the consolidation law, delay penalties, eliminate penalties or repeal the consolidation law altogether.

Legislators voiced concerns that other consolidation amendments could become competing measures that would appear before voters in November alongside a citizen-initiated bid to repeal the consolidation mandate.

If that bid succeeds -- and we'll have to wait until November to know -- Fitts' consolidation amendment could become a moot point.