🍏 Schools will get more aid after Maine discovers a $42 million math error.
◉ A "duplicative data entry" issue led the Maine Department of Education to overestimate a key figure that helps set state aid to K-12 schools, a state official said in an email to districts on Tuesday.
◉ The major error is actually good news for many districts. On net, nearly $42.4 million more in state aid will go to them, including $3.6 million in Portland, more than $800,000 in Lewiston and nearly $900,000 in Bangor. That will partially offset the contribution of local taxpayers to schools. No district will get less money, but many of them will see no increase. Here's the data.
◉ The effect of the error on the two-year state budget is unclear. The original calculations date back to January. An education department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question on the budget.
⛏ A referendum question's wording goes to the high court.
◉ The Maine Supreme Judicial Court will assemble Thursday to hear a battle between supporters of a 2023 referendum question that would put Maine's electric system under the control of an elected board and the state. The dispute is over the question's wording.
◉ Secretary of State Shenna Bellows' office drafted a question that hews more to the utilities' preferred framework, proposing to ask voters to create a "quasi-governmental" power company. Proponents of the power takeover won a lower-court decision this month directing the state not to use that term.
◉ Bellows is appealing the decision, and justices will hear that case at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday. Read the filings. |
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