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A student walks down the hallway at Rowe Elementary in Portland on Friday. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald School administrators across Maine are awaiting a report that could change the complex formula used to decide how much money the state gives each district. A state research organization is expected this spring to complete its study of that formula, which many say doesn’t account for growing needs in schools like special education, multilingual education and homeless student support.
The current method was created in 2004. Its goal is to assess how much money districts need to provide an “adequate” education, and then fairly allocate that funding between districts. The state begins by calculating the needs of each district based on per-pupil costs, student enrollment, staffing, operating expenses and other variables like transportation and special education.
Per-pupil costs are also weighted by factors like economic disadvantage and multilingualism, and adjusted for isolated small schools. Under Gov. Janet Mills, the Legislature has recommitted to covering 55% of the entire cost of K-12 education — but that doesn’t mean each district has 55% of its budget paid through state funds.
That share is calculated based on property tax valuations, and they range widely, from less than 10% to more than 70%. Portland, for example, receives about 18% of its “essential” funding from the state, while Sanford schools receive 76%. “If the state provided an equal amount of funds to each town, many towns would still not be able to afford the minimum education necessary for each student.
That’s a problem,” Paula Gravelle, the state’s director of school finance, explained during a recent presentation to the Legislature. “So the state will provide less to towns with higher property fiscal capacity ..
. therefore allowing all students, no matter where they live, to have the same education opportunities.” But the problem, many school leaders and legislators say, is that high property valuations don’t adequately account for growing needs in many districts.
And property values don’t necessarily align with the income of a community. That means some school districts struggle to raise enough in local tax dollars, without overburdening property owners, to cover all of their costs. “As a superintendent, you can predict your future.
You can look at your valuation over the next year, and I already know what my next three-year average for valuation is going to be,” said Jeremy Ray, superintendent of Biddeford, Saco and Dayton schools. “Without something really, systematically changing around the formula and/or the organizational structure of schools, we know what we’re going to have.” Haley Williams teaches her first graders phonics at Rowe Elementary in Portland on Friday.
Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald The Legislature last year tasked the Maine Educational Policy Research Institute , a nonpartisan wing of the University of Maine System that works with the Education Committee, to review the fairness of the formula and recommend changes. The researchers spent the year meeting with superintendents across the state to gather feedback and discovered that most administrators think the formula doesn’t reflect the current realities of providing adequate educational services, like inflation, new necessary positions and costs associated with homeless students. “The fact is that 55 (percent) doesn’t feel like it’s enough to most people,” Jennifer Chace, assistant director of the Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation at the University of Southern Maine, told the committee.
Superintendents said the quality of schooling depends on each town’s commitment to education, she explained, and the ability to pay doesn’t always align with the willingness to pay. District leaders also shared that special education costs are unpredictable — which can have a big impact on small or rural school districts — and staffing struggles are exacerbated by the formula. “There is an intense competition for staff between neighboring districts, and you can imagine what kind of situation that sets up for superintendents in a region,” Chace said.
“And for the poorer districts, they simply don’t have the means to attract and retain the staff they need.” Rosie Lenehan, a teacher-librarian at Rowe Elementary, helps kindergarten students check out books at the school in Portland on Friday. Lenehan is in her third year at the Portland school and previously worked as a librarian in Scarborough and as a classroom teacher in the Cumberland and Yarmouth school districts.
Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald She explained that superintendents almost universally believe there should be a more regional approach to special education (which will be included in a separate report) and professional development, and that there should be statewide conversations about prioritization: “They don’t really want any winners or losers,” Chace said. “They want it to work for everyone.” The Maine Educational Policy Research Institute presented its first of five reports last month.
It focused on data trends , like a 19% decline in public school enrollment between 2001 and 2023. In that same period, however, the number of teachers has fluctuated, and is currently at about the same level as in 2001. Statewide education spending has steadily increased during that period at a rate greater than inflation, from around $1.
5 billion in 2001 to almost $3 billion in 2023, and per-pupil spending has increased as enrollment has decreased. The cost of special education statewide has more than doubled, and the per-student cost of special education has more than tripled, from $1,000 in 2001 to more than $3,000 in 2023. The institute’s report also showed that schools are spending more (26% on average) than the state funding formula calculates — and that’s money that they cover entirely with local funding.
Ray, who oversees three districts with very different state allocations, said the funding formula was a good tool 20 years ago, but things have changed, especially for high-property value, high-poverty districts, like Biddeford, which gets about 41% of its funding from the state and has a 64% poverty rate among students. Ray is supporting two bills currently being considered in the Legislature: one that would add more weight in the formula for homeless students ; and one that would increase the weight for economically disadvantaged students . “Right now, we’re in a very difficult budget situation, because our valuation in the city of Biddeford is continuing to grow at a rate much greater than the average in the state of Maine, “Ray said.
“While at the same time, having growth in our student poverty and (English language learner) populations, along with all of the other special education needs that every district is dealing with.” “And that has left us in a situation where this will be an extremely tough budget year, all because the supposed value of the city has increased,” he said. Portland Superintendent Ryan Scallon is hoping a review of the formula will address students who require multiple accommodations, like multilingual students who also have special education needs, which it doesn’t currently account for.
He said Portland has to deal with the gap between the city’s valuation and the real amount paid in property taxes, which is widened by large institutions like Maine Medical Center and the University of Southern Maine, which are assessed, but not taxed because of their nonprofit status. First grade teacher Haley Williams in her classroom at Rowe Elementary, where she has taught for eight years. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald And while the state funding formula accounts for important factors, like economic status and multilingualism, those multipliers are diminished by an assumption about the community’s ability to pay, Scallon said.
“I appreciate the need to balance needs across a wide range of districts, and I appreciate the fact that they’re digging into this to figure out if there’s a different way to think about the seesaw of the costs and the expenses to educate and the local ability to afford,” Scallon said. “It just feels like the seesaw is not in balance right now.” He also said that shifting the formula without making additional investments will still create winners and losers.
But increasing sources of revenue, like through a hotel tax that directly supports school construction and operating costs, could allow for greater investment without burdening some districts. That idea is already circulating in the Legislature. Rep.
Michael Brennan, a Portland Democrat who sits on the Education Committee, sponsored a bill that would add a 3% sales tax to hotel rooms to fund school construction and K-12 education. “We get a huge influx of people over the summer that, for a couple of dollars, are not going to change their move north,” Scallon said. “For us who are here year round, it would pay for things, but wouldn’t put an undue burden on our senior citizens or our more economically disadvantaged homeowners, and would expand the pie.
” Even in the high-receiving district of Sanford, which gets 76.3% of its funding from the state, issues with the formula remain. Like Ray, Sanford Superintendent Matt Nelson said he’s supporting bills to increase the formula’s consideration of homeless and economically disadvantaged students.
“We’ve had an increase in homeless students. And for us to follow the McKinney-Vento law, and for us to help keep those people educated and in their schools, there’s the cost of that,” Nelson said. “We don’t have anything through the funding that addresses that.
” McKinney-Vento is a federal law that guarantees educational stability for homeless students. He also said increasing property valuations can affect the state allocation, but those homeowners aren’t necessarily more well-off. “Even though the valuation of our residents’ homes really increased, the only way they’d see that increase would be if they were selling their property,” Nelson said.
“Their day-to-day life really didn’t change much. And yet, when you look at the impact that valuation has, that would then be requiring more from our local (community) based on that. And I don’t think that was the intent of the funding formula.
” As the leader of the district that relies so heavily on that state subsidy, Nelson said he’ll be keeping a close eye on any changes so he can maximize resources for students efficiently. We invite you to add your comments. We encourage a thoughtful exchange of ideas and information on this website.
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