TOPSHAM

With 71 applications for new schools on backlog, freshman state Rep. Andrew Mason, D-Topsham, has proposed to raise the state’s cap on construction bonds by $10 million.

Mason said his bill — LD 91— would help get school construction projects in motion by restoring the maximum debt service limit for fiscal years 2013-14 and 2014-15, from $116 million to the $126 million cap set in 2011.

The Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs held a public hearing on the bill Feb. 13, and a work session Wednesday. Mason said committee members unanimously voted the bill “ought to pass.” Mason said he hopes the bill will help move school construction projects forward, including high school construction and renovation projects proposed in School Administrative District 75 and Regional School Unit 1. Mt. Ararat was ranked No. 21 for funding in a 2004-05 rating cycle that saw the first 20 projects funded.

School officials assumed they were “next in line” and would be on the top of the 2011 priority list but were instead listed as No. 7. So far, the six schools ahead of Mt. Ararat have all been approved for funding.

Mason said many schools facing infrastructure needs, such as Mt. Ararat, “are in limbo waiting to get approved for construction, and in the meantime … allocate or spend precious resources to keep up the physical plant.”

Mt. Ararat, for example, has maintenance needs that include heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades plus repairs to the roof, he said.

SAD 75 Superintendent Brad Smith told the school board he testified Feb. 13 to “let the Education Committee know of our position and our need — and most importantly the fact that, since 2004, we’ve been putting money into this building knowing that the state has said at some point it needs to be replaced or remodeled.”

Smith said the idea of taking on a major school construction project totally with local dollars “probably would be out of the grasp of our four towns.”

Mason said that by increasing the cap to $126 million — the limit for how much the state Department of Education can spend on bond payments — it would essentially allow another $10 million to leverage approximately $200 million in additional construction funds.

Increasing the debt limit could allow the education commissioner the flexibility to be “less reticent to go ahead and approve the next round of schools,” using the existing school construction priority list, Mason said.

David Connerty-Marin, director of communications for the state Department of Education, said the state is not spending as much on bond payments for school construction as allowed.

“We could build a fair bit more than we are planning to at the moment,” he said. But the department is taking a cautious approach in a difficult economic climate.

Connerty-Marin said the money to pay debts for school construction comes out of the same pool as General Purpose Aid.

The preliminary fiscal impact statement for LD 91 says there isn’t sufficient time to bring new projects online that would require funding for additional debt service payments in the 2014- 15 biennium. So raising the debt limit won’t necessarily affect the next round of schools on the list awaiting funding, Mason said.

“There’s so many critical needs with many of these schools that we need to get construction going through the pipeline because of the long delay from approval to completion,” he said.

His bill was supported by the Maine School Superintendents Association, the Maine School Boards Association, the Maine Board of Education, the Mayors’ Coalition on Jobs and Economic Development, and individual school superintendents who testified.

The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Seth Goodall, D-Richmond; and Reps. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, Matthea Daughtry, D-Brunswick, Gay Grant, D-Gardiner, Barry Hobbins, D-Saco, Peter Kent, D-Woolwich, Bruce MacDonald, D-Boothbay, and Jeremy Saxton, D-Harpswell.

dmoore@timesrecord.com