The Maine Department of Education announced this week that 31 plans to consolidate school districts have been approved.

With two local districts on the list, the work to conform with the Legislature’s consolidation law passed in 2007 is closer to concluded. But the intended relief for taxpayers may well only shimmer like a mirage on a hot summer road.

The law reducing school districts and unions from 290 to 80 promised to reduce property taxes. It was so promising legislators wrote in $36.5 million in state subsidy reductions to schools beginning July 1.

In reality, they shifted the pea to another shell and the taxpayers will pay more as towns make up for lost subsidies or reduce educational services.

Two Lakes Region districts, School Administrative District 61, covering Bridgton, Casco, Naples and Sebago; and School Administrative District 15, covering Gray and New Gloucester; have had alternative plans approved to remain independent. Those plans required approval because the districts lacked the requisite 2,500 students to continue alone without approval.

In Windham, initial plans to merge the school district with Raymond and Westbrook districts were scotched earlier this spring after school officials learned a merger with Westbrook carried high initial costs to Windham taxpayers.

In Raymond, the question of where students will attend high school and capping tuition paid by the town to rates charged at Windham High School have angered parents. School choice in town will become costly to parents deciding that Windham High School is not the best choice for their children.

Raymond residents voted against the school budget despite its minimal increase because the town share increased 11.5 percent thanks to subsidy losses.

The consolidation process in SAD 61 was especially hard fought. Last summer was spent examining a merger with SADs 55 and 72 that would have added Brownfield, Baldwin, Cornish, Denmark, Fryeburg, Hiram, Porter, Parsonsfield, Sweden and Stow to make a Regional School Unit more than 675 square miles in size. No savings could be found in the merger.

SAD 61 officials developed a plan to stay independent, cutting spending by forgoing repairs to aging schools and possibly closing Sebago or Crooked River Elementary schools. It is hard to believe delaying repairs or adding longer bus trips for students would ultimately save taxpayer money because of rising construction or fuel costs.

The consolidation law also changed the process for approving a school budget. A meeting detailing each line item in the budget precedes an election where the whole budget instead of warrant items gets a yes or no vote.

The state claims this allows for more participation in spending decisions. Initial results show the only thing less attended than a school budget vote is the meeting reviewing every item in the budget.

That may be the fault of apathetic taxpayers, but like the rest of the law, the state has not made anything easier or less expensive to taxpayers.

In time, Lakes Region taxpayers will learn that the school district consolidation the state lauds as tax reform is actually a legislative shell game costing taxpayers time, energy and ultimately, more money.

David Harry, editor