[Local-Maine-Schools] The signatures on our petition are being counted

[skipgreenlaw]

Good morning everyone,

I am pleased to report to you that the signatures on our petition to repeal
the school consolidation law are being counted by the Secretary of State's office.  Julie Flynn, Deputy Secretary of State, and I agreed that we would touch base the first week of January to update the progress.

Keith Cook of Waterville forwarded to many of us the following article which appeared in the The Times Record (Brunswick) yesterday.

"A task force assigned with restructuring Maine's natural resources agencies in the face of a $500 million budget shortfall disbanded Monday without a consolidation plan to submit to the Legislature.

The Natural Resource Agency Task Force instead will this month complete a 30-page report that recommends against implementing Gov. John Baldacci's proposal to consolidate the departments of Agriculture,
Conservation, Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and Marine Resources,  The
Times Record reported.  Members of the task force worried that some agencies' operation would be lost or diminished through consolidation.  Still, each agency and Baldacci's office will draft legislation for the upcoming session, which begins Jan.7

The 37- member task force included natural resources officials and the commissioners of all four agencies, which make up about 2.3% of the state budget."

Bravo to the 37 member task force who realized that consolidation makes no sense and saves no money.  The Governor must be furious.  Why would any chief executive draft legislation in light of the collapse of the task force's efforts at consolidation?  I wish that the Commissioner of Education had had the same resolve to say "no" to school consolidation
two years ago when that idea surfaced in the administration.  

I keep wondering whether the Governor will attempt to offer legislation to consolidate town governements.  Remember that the State appropriates
significant sums of monies to cities and towns in the form of revenue sharing and homestead revenues.  Those funds are not as extensive as general purpose aid to education or medicaid funding.  I have an idea which I shall publish in January which could go a long way to closing the revenue shortfall for the next biennium.  Stay tuned.

Keith Cook also wrote in his e-mail the following:  "If the only idea you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail."  How true!!!!!

I wish you and your families best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season.

Sincerely,
Skip
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mainetalk.org/pipermail/local-maine-schools_mainetalk.org/attachments/20081211/9dff4a66/attachment.html>