The unanticipated bonanza of federal funding over the past two years, plus a rapidly rebounding pandemic economy, has left Maine, like most states, awash in cash.

It won’t last. But after the many budget crises of the previous three decades, starting with the big one in 1991, it’s a nice problem to have.

In keeping with her cautious governance, Gov. Janet Mills has proposed — with the Legislature generally going along — sticking with the tried and true. After the lean years of Gov. Paul LePage’s budgets, where tax-cutting was the main and almost sole priority, Mills has restored funding to a host of programs.

These include, most notably, returning municipal revenue sharing to its statutory 5%, after being cut to just 2%, and — for the first time — a full 55% for public schools, from pre-kindergarten through high school. With teacher retirement included — the employer share is paid entirely by the state — Maine is now channeling more than $1.7 billion a year into the primary and secondary system.

There’s such a large surplus that Mills, responding to Republican entreaties, wants to route more than $400 million of the estimated $822 million back to taxpayers in the form of rebate checks, on top of a smaller round last year.

Of the remaining balance, she proposes to dump another $100 million into the leaky bucket that is Maine’s Highway Fund, a program for which revenue has been inadequate for some two decades, yet without any move toward higher fuel taxes.

There’s extra funding for retirees — a near-necessity in that annual adjustments are capped at 3% and inflation was nearly twice that in 2021; state retirees are not eligible for Social Security, with its automatic COLAs.

Yet there’s little in the latest round that could be described a new program, with one exception — free tuition at Maine’s community colleges, at a two-year cost of $20 million: a bargain.

It’s an idea that’s been around a long time, at least since Gov. John Baldacci renamed the technical colleges in 2003, but without providing any significant new funding.

The seven community colleges are probably the least visible part of the public educational system, from pre-K through graduate degrees, but have always enjoyed strong support, both among the public and lawmakers.

The two-year programs produce graduates in nursing, construction trades, and many other fields that are in record high demand, yet attendance — as well as in four-year university programs — has lagged New England averages.

The belief that bachelor’s degrees would be necessary for the “jobs of the future” dominated educational rhetoric from the 1990s onward. It turns out most new jobs don’t require college degrees, and the pandemic’s “essential workers” often have only high school diplomas.

What the college push has done is create an explosion of student debt, a problem Mills recognizes with a plan to add $42 million to the Opportunity Tax Credit, providing reimbursement to graduates who stay to work in Maine.

But the emphasis ought to be on avoiding debt in the first place, which is why the community college endeavor is so important. Although the current tuition of $3,700 seems reasonable, it’s actually a significant barrier for those most likely to attend, especially in the thousands of Maine families where no one’s ever attended college.

While it’s true that a high school education isn’t enough to move into jobs paying a living wage, the community college option can raise aspirations while relieving what it becoming a major labor shortage.

As the demographically oldest state in the nation, Maine desperately needs more young people, and one way to attract them is to make education more easily available, especially since so many students hold jobs while attending.

There are the familiar arguments about what happens after two years, but what should happen is that the program becomes permanent. Free tuition beyond high school is already the rule in most of the best systems, worldwide.

Maine’s emphasis, and perhaps over-emphasis, on funding primary and secondary education is one place to look for efficiencies. A 2007 effort to consolidate districts, while leaving schools intact, was botched.

Instead of a much smaller number of administrative units, Maine still has more more than 200 school superintendents, overseeing districts with a crazy quilt of different organizational structures.

There’s probably little enthusiasm for another round of reorganization, but the state should at least try. With close to a third of general fund spending going to primary and secondary schools, the state needs to see that dollars aren’t being wasted.

Who knows? It could work well enough to then take on higher education, on through the University of Maine System. But that’s another story, for another day.

Douglas Rooks, a Maine editor, commentator and reporter since 1984, is the author of three books. His first, “Statesman: George Mitchell and the Art of the Possible,” is now out in paperback.  He welcomes comment at: drooks@tds.net

 

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