The Dept. of Education has to curtail funding to school districts because of revenue shortfall. They should impose fines on those districts that have obstructed consolidation, those that did not put in a good faith effort, and those districts that played the stalling game.

Very intelligent move paul, penalize those that would lose by consolidating. The government should be allowed to blackmail the voters, and any time they want to force the people to do something, they should just fine them if they don't! We really don't need the few freedoms that are left in this country, not really sure why we left England to start with! Government wants my guns? Just fine me if I don't give them to you!

I am presently in Iraq, and proud to be able serve the country that I love. Does not mean I agree with everything about this war, but will gladly answer the call anytime I recieve it! Nothing sickens me more than to see any government body bully thier way into our lives. What has happened here is at a minimum immoral. The only silver lining is the governor's impending departure!

Thank you militaryman.

What has happened here is an end to the raping of the taxpayer under the guise of quality education. The education issue here has been immoral. You can not get it back! Better late than never though. Hallelujah!

There are many towns in rural Maine that would spend more money to consolidate than they spend now. This is a one size fits all solution that doesn't work for many of our school systems. The southern Maine legislators and voters are stuffing this idiotic law down the throats of rural Maine. It would be a different outcome if southern Maine had to consolidate all their schools - but they have the political power and rural Maine will pay the bill.

The law enshrines this administration's deeply held predjudice against rural education infrastructure, which is neither wasteful nor redundant. As these values will certainly now be pursued ever more aggressively, it is my fervent hope that the legislature will enact protections for taxpayers and children who have nothing to gain from this legislation and in fact are targeted to lose. Attempts to turn the human potential of rural Maine into cash destined for more urban areas will ultimately fail everyone. The research is clear on the folly of this path...

Consolidation in our rural area will result in fewer educational opportunities, as the cuts that are made target the "extra" programs first. This is a case of one state against the other - south against north. When is the state going to be held responsible for paying their 55% share, as required by law??? Are our Governor and Education Commissioner in contempt and violating their oaths?

Consolidation stayed in effect because of Question One. Had Question One not been on the ballot, Southern Maine voters (which supported consolidation because it doesn't affect them) would have stayed home, and consolidation would have been history. Sorry Yes on Three people, you got screwed because of what else was on the ballot.

The idea of consolidation appeals to our sensabilities of economies of scale, of widgets and so forth that simply don't follow when applied to children. Let's minimize the harm of this dreadful and divisive bill until such time as Maine has an administration that values the aspirations of urban and rural children equally.

My property taxes went down $600 this year in part due to consolidation. Consolidation is critical if we want to go forward with quality education which is critical to Maine's future. Anyone suggesting that rural education in Maine is effiecent doesn't know anything about rural Maine education.

Many school districts that did not consolidate, did so because of sports rivalries only. The money didn't influence it. Time people gave up their petty jealousies and did what was best for their kids.

What would you tell taxpayers whose taxes have increased due to consolidation, and whose children have not benefited, JonAlbrecht? This law creates winners and losers by design, with no savings on balance. Your views certainly play into our ideas of efficiency and quality education, and I once shared them. These assumptions, though, incorrect, will not go away anytime soon, and that is, in part why the repeal failed. Raised by education professionals, I was brought up to believe that consolidation was the wave of the future and it would be best for our rural children, just as you do. When I began studying the idea in 2003, as the Commissioner began targeting a local school, what I found was counterintuitive, to put it mildly. The empirical data changed my mind, and armed with the facts, our community rallied and fought. Your stereotype of rural aspirations is incorrect, at least in this rural, well-educated, community. Constantly depicted as holding quaint, parochial views of "local control", our rallying cry was clear: EDUCATIONAL QUALITY, and THERE IS NO SAVINGS! There was no sports team, (there was, indeed, more basketball opportunities at the potential receiving school). So many people whose own children were already grown recognized that there is no real divide between the interests of children and taxpayers and rallied to the side of children. De-centralization of school governance is ALL about what is best for children, and I have the enormous body of research, of empirical data to prove it.

Dept. of Education should have imposed the fines at the beginning of this school year rather than allowing non-complying districts a grace period. Those administrators who rushed in to their Boards and got a guaranteed three-year contract before the consolidation impetus was in full motion, should share the penalty. One of the goals of consolidation was to reduce costs particularly through reducing redundant administration. What a perfect time to take a look at administration staffing at the highest levels.

As Santayana once said, "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Maine's voters apparently haven't learned from their own state history. I'd like to see how that vote broke down by urban/rural voting residence. It's pretty easy to vote for someone else's tax increase in a rural or village area when you live in an urban apartment and don't pay the property taxes. Now Maine population centers everywhere will gain greater control over their rural neighbors' pocketbooks, and more towns will be forced to raise taxes to pay their share of what urban voters want, and more rural land will be forced into development. Then the urban enthusiasts will wonder why their rural fellow-citizens are levelling their woodlots and selling them for housing developments in order to pay their taxes. Maine's government is what I'd call (if I weren't so politically correct) a sewerfull of retarded droolers who would embarass the culch in the bilges of an old fishing boat. And of course, with larger districts, fewer outlying parents will be able to make it to PTA meetings. If I had children, I'd leave Maine.

And the correspondent who linked this disaster with question 1 is quite right. Maine's religious enthusiasts are apparently more worried about what consenting adults might do behind closed doors than they are about the fact that the state government sodomizes every taxpayer every day. The real abusive and perverse marriage in Maine is between the Government and all those citizens who don't live in cities and can't divorce the government without leaving the state. That's what we get when we elect a governor who was pushed beyond his capacity when he quit waiting tables at his mother's restaurant to run for office as a Democrat, and a bunch of silly urbanites with lulu degrees, most of whom are supported by inheritances or divorce settlements, generally out of state.

There are plenty of RSU's in Southern Maine. Old Orchard, Saco, and Dayton formed RSU 23 which has been inoperation for over a year. Everyon seems happy with the arrangement.

Apartment dwellers do pay taxes--thorugh their rent. If the landlords aren't being taxed enough, that should be changed.

As for loading the ballot, don't forget the effect of refs. 2 and 4 (TABOR), both other hot button items (taxes in the "me" state, not "ME").

I'd be in favor of not penalizing those districts who haven't consolidated especially if they are saving money on their own. Rather than one size fits all, tailor the policy to the individual district.

Again, WinfromOOB, what do you say to citizens of areas of the state that are very different from Southern Maine, who are harmed by the law? You illustrate perfectly why the repeal failed -- people did not understand this.

JonAlbrecht is it best for the children to have a 2 hour bus ride to and from school every day?

Start fining those districts that did not comply with the LAW to begin with & reward those that did! People crabbing about local control??? Look at the states taxes and city/town taxes... one town recently had a 41% tax increase (and their school budget went down by 40k because they followed the LAW & regionalized), guess what folks ~ WE'VE ALREADY LOST "LOCAL CONTROL"

Oh & as far as kids traveling 2 hours to & from school, read the LAW.... your town can pay to keep your school open if the RSU decides it is in the best interest to close it. Also, why do you think any board members would want their students traveling 2 hours to & from school. Elect the right people & that shouldn't be any worry. Any one with a brain knows that traveling on a bus 2 hours would be a terribly poor decision & not in the best "educational" interest of any child.

There ARE some Southern Maine districts that are negatively affected by this law. One of my neighboring districts in York County is surrounded by stand-alone districts or districts that were large enough SADs to just change their name to an RSU. They have tried, via voting, to consolidate with every district around them. None will. The towns vote it down every time. So now what? They have cut their budgets, laid people off, cut programs. Now the state is saying consolidate or you're getting fined...unless a court or the state does it by force, they can't consolidate because no one else will take them on.

So what is the solution here?

Militaryman-easy does it on the rant-take a deep breath-I don't want your gun and I don't know what England has to do with anything I've mentioned.

What I do know is this. We elected a legislature. They passed a consolidation law. The governor signed it. The people had a referendum. The people endorsed the consolidation law. That is not government bullying. That is democracy. When people fail to follow the law, there is a penalty. That has been standard practice in civilization for millenia.

An example of bullying would be the government lying to its own people about national security and invading a country that has neither threatened nor attacked it (coincidently the reason you are in Iraq). Telling your allies "you're either with us or against us" is another example of bullying.

If people don't want to consolidate their tiny school districts, that's fine. But they need to pay the price tag and not let tax payers from other districts make up the difference through subsidies from Augusta. Seems intelligent to me.

CentralMainah -- you're point about 2-hour bus rides: This actually happened in the aftermath of West Virginia's aggressive consolidation effort in 1990. Also, in Arkansas, the Commissioner's own model. As RSU formation dissolves local school boards, so goes protection from this very harmful effect of consolidation. People don't vote for their own children to be bussed to nowhere -- their resources liquidated and funneled into transportation and construction costs. These sorts of things are voted onto rural children by people in far-flung, larger communities looking to liquidate rural infrastructure and taking that money for themselves. You would be shocked, as I was, the sort things people will inflict on other peoples' children. As for "tiny districts paying the price" -- this assumes small districts are expensive, wasteful and inefficient. This is incorrect, except for the punitive funding policies applied by this administration.