October 2008 Archives

Does Maine Support MAINE?

By
Martin Sheehan
on October 30, 2008 3:42 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Every politician of every possible persuasion promises to support Maine people and create Maine jobs - right?

 

Well, while searching the Checks to Businesses & People section of MaineOpenGov.Org, the out-of-state spending by the State of Maine is shocking!  After Maine, the biggest pile of money sent to another state is the $52,838,303 spent with Massachusetts firms in 2007.  That is a bit more than one million tax dollars a week!   
 
It gets worse!  The total spending shows 2007 State of Maine vendor payments of $1,012,794,401.  About 64 percent ($647,527,689) was spent with Maine companies.  This means that more than a third of these tax dollars ($365,266,712) were spent outside of Maine in 2007.
 
That is one million dollars a day!
 
Politicians will justify high state spending by emphasizing the Multiplier Effect - which estimates that every dollar of state spending generates three or four or five dollars in the private sector economy. 
 
OK.  But if this Multiplier Effect argument is part of the justification for Maine's high spending... why is Augusta sending one million tax dollars outside of Maine every day - so they can "multiply" somewhere else?   
 
Some people argue that there are specific services and products unavailable in Maine, and that is correct.  But a million tax dollars a day are spent on things like office supplies, office furniture, marketing support, printing, consulting, professional services, public education services, desktop computers, office interior design, repairs to buildings, laptop computers, document scanners, construction contractors, computer maintenance, computer printers...  
 
Pick up the Yellow Pages, Augusta!  These products and services are available through Maine businesses, who employ Maine people, who pay Maine taxes... and would like the chance to try out this Multiplier Effect theory here in Maine!  (And if Maine companies cannot compete with out-of-state firms because of our business climate... who's fault is that?)
 

 

MaineOpenGov.Org is a window into state spending, and we hope that our Moggers* are using this information to question candidates this fall!
 

  
 

  
* MOG Users are known informally as "Moggers."

New Report Shows Widespread Support for School Choice in Maine

By
Steve Bowen
on October 29, 2008 3:46 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Our friends at the University of Maine have just released a report, done in cooperation with the Penquis Superintendents' Association, which shows that preserving school choice was a critical issue for many communities in Maine as they faced the school district consolidation mandate, enough so that it was seen as a major barrier.

Consider the following findings form the report:

Page 23: Developing a partnership with a community that had school choice was a concern of many respondents. The possibility that these communities would send students to high schools outside the RSU was a major concern and many school choice communities were adamant that school choice be preserved. Although the reorganization law protects school choice, many involved in the RPC process expressed doubts about the stability of protections. One superintendent expressed this as follows,

"Where the law allowed for choice, that the choice might remain. There's a great
deal of mistrust in the state government. One of the things I consistently heard from
people was: "Well, that's what the law says right now, but what about five years
from now?"

Page 33: On the survey, 93% of the RPC member respondents indicated that potential
loss of local control was a significant/ highly significant challenge...65% indicated that
concern about loss of school choice in some communities was significant.

Page 34: A community representative said, "What citizens in my town wanted, we wanted to stay in control of our schools and we want to keep school choice--high school choice. That may be the biggest issue. . . . The law is written to say that school choice will stay, but we were suspicious. We felt that over time, there would be pressure to send our kids to
[high school A]

Page 73:  The findings from this research suggest that the lack of support for school district reorganization is rooted in four fundamental problems: 1) pressure from time constraints and mandates; 2) lack of confidence in the stability of the initiative; 3) lack of credibility of primary goals; and 4) threats to local values around governance and school choice.


It is good to see such strong support for school choice still out there across Maine. Now let's hope the people in Raymond and Orland, both of whom will vote on whether or not to keep school choice next week, have the same passion for keeping their school choice rights...



Predictions for Consolidation Plans

By
Steve Bowen
on October 28, 2008 8:43 PM |

Our friends over at AsMaineGoes have been doing a little predicting.  How will the 17 consolidation plans to go before voters turn out?  My guesses:

 

·         Falmouth / MSAD 51(Cumberland).  Though held out as a model for the state, support for this plan has been unraveling.  My guess?  DEFEATED.

 

·         MSAD 34 (Belfast) / MSAD 56 (Searsport).  You hardly hear a peep about this plan.  Seems to have attracted little, if any opposition.  PASSES.

 

·        

Taxes Matter XVI

By
J Scott Moody
on October 27, 2008 10:56 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Harvard economist Greg Mankiw illustrates in a recent blog, "My Personal Work Incentives," why taxes matter--the classic "labor-leisure" trade-off.

Maine versus New Hampshire VII

By
J Scott Moody
on October 25, 2008 11:52 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
One of the greatest economic and policy differences between Maine and New Hampshire is the level of spending on personal current transfer receipts (PCTR).  This type of spending includes Social Security, Medicaid/Medicare and other welfare programs.  Overall, Maine's PCTR totalled $8,784,996,000 in 2007 while New Hampshire's PCTR totalled $6,445,554,000--or $2.3 billion lower (click "continue reading" to view charts).

While Maine's policy-makers cannot control Social Security or Medicare spending, they do control other important programs such as Medicaid and other types of welfare.  These state level programs account for half the difference in 2007.  The difference in Medicaid spending alone is nearly $1 billion with Maine spending almost $2 billion to New Hampshire's $1 billion.  Maine also spent $110 million more in food stamps.  New Hampshire only spent $63 million total in food stamps.

And keep in mind that New Hampshire's economy, as measured by personal income, is nearly $10 billion bigger than Maine's with almost exactly the same population.
Continue reading Maine versus New Hampshire VII.

Education news roundup

By
Steve Bowen
on October 23, 2008 8:25 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
It has been a few weeks since the last update on the education blog.  A few news stories of note:

  • Skip Greenlaw's Maine Coalition to Save Schools submitted 61,142 signatures to repeal the school consolidation law, several thousand more than the 55,087 needed to put the issue before voters.  The Secretary of State's office will be validating the signatures over the next few months, and there is the risk that the group may fall short.  Fed Up With Taxes, the group working to repeal the Dirigo Tax, collected more than 95,000 signatures for that initiative, but the Secretary of State's office validated only 72,432. If Greenlaw's group wasn't any more careful than Fed Up With Taxes, they may fall short even with a 6000 signature buffer.  Stay tuned...
  • Just weeks after it was reported that the Maine Department of Education covered up news of abysmally poor scores on last year's 8th grade MEA writing test, the Department has announced plans to cancel this spring's 5th and 8th grade tests entirely, replacing them with a different test to be administered next fall.  Citing the high costs of the MEA writing test, which requires human, rather than machine scoring, the Department plans to replace the test with the New England Common Assessment Test, a joint project of three other New England states.  The Maine Heritage Policy Center will do a fuller analysis of this change in the weeks to come, but two initial thoughts spring to mind.  First, the good news is that using a common test will allow easier comparisons between the achievement of Maine's schools and students and those of Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire, which also administer the test.  What I am wondering, though, is how well the NECAP test is matched against Maine's learning standards.  We don't want a situation where schools are teaching to Maine standards, only to have their students assessed against completely different standards.  The Department is claiming this move will save money, but is it good for students, teachers, and schools?
  • The KJ's Matt Stone recently reported the findings of an interesting survey of school district consolidation committees.  It found a high degree of skepticism among regionalization planners, nearly half of whom anticipated their consolidation plans would be turned down by voters.  The planners cited a shortage of time to do community outreach and a lack of real budget savings from consolidation as reasons for likely opposition from voters.  We'll find out soon enough.  According to the Department, 17 consolidation plans will go before voters on November 4th.
  •  The Department of Education is already warning districts to expect a state funding freeze for perhaps the next two years. As the Sun Journal reveals, state funding for schools is up about $250 million since 2005, and the school districts that appear to be in trouble are the ones that grew school spending as a result. Those that funneled the increased state funding into property tax relief, which is what voters demanded when they approved the 55% provision back in 2004, will be hit less hard - they simply didn't grow their budgets as much.  No doubt more news on the budget will come when new revenue projections are done - after the election.
  • The presidential election, of course, will have a profound impact of federal education policy. We'll report on what those impacts may be once we know for sure who will be running the show come January 20 of 2009.

Price of Cigarettes to Increase for Mainers

By
J Scott Moody
on October 17, 2008 1:18 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
No, the Maine legislature did not clandestinely meet in the middle of the night to raise the cigarette tax.  Rather, New Hampshire increased their cigarette tax by 25 cents on Wednesday to $1.33 per pack.  For all the Mainers who engage in cross-border shopping, the tax savings on cigarettes just went down.  However, Maine's cigarette tax is still significantly higher at $2 per pack.

Federal Expenditures in Maine, 2007

By
J Scott Moody
on October 3, 2008 12:16 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
On Wednesday (October 2), the Census Bureau released the 2007 data on federal expenditure by state--called the Consolidated Federal Funds Report.  All data is expressed in federal fiscal years.  The report shows federal expenditures in Maine climbing 7.9 percent to $11.85 billion in 2007 from $10.979 billion in 2006.  Maine's growth rate exceeded the national average of 4.3 percent.

Driving this trend is the growth in "Retirement and Disability" category which grew 7 percent to $4.254 billion in 2007 from $3.977 billion in 2006.  Maine's growth rate in this category also exceeded the national average of 5.9 percent.  Another tell-tale sign of Maine's rapidly aging population.  See attached chart for federal expenditures in Maine by category.

"Grants to State and Local Governments" was another fast growing category at 4.6 percent versus the national average of 0.4 percent.  The majority of this category is made up of matching funds for Medicaid.

Fed_Exp_2007.JPG





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