The Governor’s plan goes well beyond the notion of local school districts working together to find efficiencies and share resources, but at this point, specifics of the proposal are in short supply.

Since the plan was devised with little or no broad public input or awareness, we pose the following questions to the Governor in the hope that he will provide answers to us, and to the citizens of Maine, in these columns or some other venue.

•Are there supporting documents behind the estimate that this proposal will produce $241 million in savings? If so, can they be made publicly available?

•The plan calls for 26 districts with a like number of regional school boards. Locally elected school committees would have only an advisory role. Clearly, unless the regional board is so large as to become unwieldy and ineffective, many communities within a regional district would have no voting voice at the table. What role, if any, will an individual community have in budgetary matters, education policy and programming or any matter involving its local school?

•Several private secondary schools, including John Bapst in Bangor, George Stevens Academy and Liberty School in Blue Hill and Washington Academy in East Machias, now accept students from communities without high schools on a tuition basis. Other towns tuition their students to more than one high school in the area. Will the regional district boards have authority to force voucher towns to send all their high school students to a single particular school? More simply: will families in voucher towns retain the right to select the school their child attends? In the age of the super-regional board, will there even be voucher towns?

•With 7,000 or more students, 400 or more teachers and several hundred janitors, bus drivers, teacher aides and food service personnel, each uber-district superintendent will require a substantial staff, likely including financial and accounting specialists, a purchasing agent and clerical staff, a human resources/labor relations manager and staff, a public relations person, information technology staff, a curriculum director, special education director, federal and state regulations specialist, a facilities manager, a transportation director and various assistants and secretaries to keep the records and produce all the required reports. Have such staffing requirements been built into the cost analysis?

•Given that class size can vary sharply from one year to another, how will the mandated increase to 17:1 in the student-teacher ratio at middle schools and high schools be administered? If a class dips to 13 or 14 students, will that force some sort of class merger or elimination of that teaching position?

•What will happen to existing cost-sharing agreements among muncipalities within current school districts? Will the expense of operating the new uber-district structure be divided among municipalities based on student populations, state valuations or some other formula? Who decides the formula?

•State aid to local school districts historically has been based largely on state valuation of property, with high valuation communities receiving minimal state dollars. Many coastal communities, in particular, have funded local schools almost entirely through local property tax assessments. Will state education aid to districts continue to be based on state valuation? If so, will districts with significant numbers of high valuation municipalities be supported at the 55 percent funding level?

•What happens to the bonded indebtedness incurred by municipalities for recently constructed schools? Will that remain a municipal obligation on top of the pro-rata cost of the new system, or will it be assumed by the regional district or the state?

•Will labor contracts be negotiated by the new districts or by the Department of Education?

•What happens with regard to those superintendents now considered superfluous who may be in the midst of multi-year contracts?

•Does the new education plan terminate the double-dipping procedure under which principals and superintendents can retire, access their pension, then be rehired into the old job with full pay and benefits other than further accrued retirement?

•What recourse, if any, would a local community have if the super-district board decided, for cost or other reasons, to close a local school and require that its students be transported to some other location?

•If this is such a great idea that will reduce administrative expenses, why haven’t you proposed the same approach for the state-owned post-secondary institutions — the University of Maine System and the Community College System — with perhaps two or three presidents statewide?

We look forward to hearing from you, Governor.