To:  Reorganization Planning Committee From:  Mike Weatherwax Date:  March 10, 2008

RE:  Reorganization Planning Legislation

Pat, Deb, and I went to a workshop this morning presented by Drummond and Woodsum regarding the reorganization planning.  While a large part of the workshop dealt with budget referendum issues, they also provided a very clear description of the muddled status of current legislation.  I am going to try to present that information as follows:

1.  LD 1932 is the amendment to the Reorganization Legislation that was developed last fall by the Legislative Education Committee to provide a "fix" to problems in the original legislation.  It was anticipated that this legislation would be passed the first week in January, but that is not how things went . . .

Included in the original LD 1932 were the following (only listed major items below): a.)  provisions for alternative cost sharing methods b.)  provisions for amending  cost sharing formulas c.)  repealing the requirement of a two mill minimum d.)  continuation of minimum subsidy allocations e.)  delay of the budget validation referendum process to 2009 f.)  changing the 2% limitation on voting authority to 5%

2.  LD 1932 was then amended by both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  The most controversial amendments were as follows: a.)  the Damon amendment permits the creation of "super unions" with local towns maintaining significant powers including local collective bargaining, hiring of teachers, etc. just as school unions do now. b.)  the Ray amendment provides for dissolving or getting out of an RSU c.) the Martin amendment provides for requiring the budget validation process for all municipalities in an RSU "union"

LD 1932 passed in the Senate by a vote of 21 to 13

3.  Next the House took up LD 1932.  They added two additional amendments and the legislation passed by 86 to 61 (or a vote close to that).

4.  The House version went back to the Senate today so that the two versions could be combined and they are working on that right now so that one version can go to the Governor.  The Governor has said that he will veto this legislation, I think primarily because of the Damon amendment.  He has ten days to veto it after he receives it.  If it is vetoed, it can go back to the Legislature and if it gets a 2/3 vote the veto is overridden and it becomes law.

5.  Simultaneously, the Governor has introduced his budget Legislation and attached to that is most of the original LD 1932 with the exception that the Governor took out those parts that he did not like.  He took out the following: a.)  the delay in the budget validation referendum b.)  the change in the last date for an RSU referendum c.)  the entire Damon amendment re "super unions" d.)  the change from a 2% to a %5 limitation on voting authority e.)  the entire Ray amendment re dissolving an RSU

So, there were lots of questions (but no clear answers) about if the original LD 1932 is passed, how does that impact the changes in the Governor's legislation  i.e. who wins?

At any rate, it looks like we will still need to wait a few more weeks to see how things shake out before we should meet again with hopefully a definitive set of rules.

The one brighter note is that today the Commissioner today sent a letter saying that if we did not change anything from our December plan submission, then we did not need to submit a plan by March 28; rather, we can send a letter stating that there have been no changes.