State Senator Eileen M. Daily
May 7, 2008
Daily Wins State Reimbursement Parameters For Portland School Funding
State Senator Eileen M. Daily (D-Westbrook), and State Representative Jim O'Rourke (D-Cromwell), acting swiftly on the last day of the legislative session, included language in a comprehensive school construction bill to codify a specific projected enrollment figure for Portland's middle school / high school complex. The memorialized enrollment figure allows the town to retain nearly $5 million in state reimbursement that had been threatened because the original enrollment projections were not attained. Portland recently completed an expansion and alteration of the town's middle school / high school complex.
As the final hours slipped away toward a mandatory midnight adjournment, Senator Daily's language specifies a projected enrollment figure of 1,070--that figure will loom large as the state calculates its share of the local / state funding collaboration.
"Portland was facing the prospect of sending back to the state an inadvertent overage in reimbursement for this reconstruction project, and a small town like Portland is hard-pressed to underwrite such an ambitious project without significant state aid," Senator Daily said. "Now we have written into state statute an enrollment level that'll allow Portland to hold onto all of that much-needed state reimbursement."
State law requires that local towns and school districts have in place an approved referendum for school construction projects before the state begins to consider reimbursement for its share of a project, Senator Daily said. Once the specific project becomes eligible for state aid, a host of variables--including projected enrollment--figure into the final percentage awarded.
"Public school students in Portland will be better served by the new, improved, and expanded middle school and high school, and that enhanced learning environment will serve additional students for generations to come," Senator Daily said. "This new language built into state statute secures for Portland its fair share of state school construction funding, to the benefit of Portland homeowners and other property tax payers."
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