The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Timothy Surrette is an associate professor of education at the University of Maine at Augusta and chair of the Bangor School Committee. This column reflects his views and expertise alone and does not speak on behalf of the University of Maine System, the Bangor School Department, or any organization in which he is a member.
On Monday, the Maine Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs had its first public hearing on LD 2226: An Act to Amend the Essential Programs and Services School Funding Formula.
According to the Maine Department of Education, the Essential Programs and Services (EPS) formula aims to “determine both the state and local share of funding needed for each school administrative unit (SAU) to have Essential Programs and Services. These Essential Programs and Services are defined as programs and resources that are essential for students to have an equitable opportunity to achieve the Maine Learning Results.”
As I’ve discussed in the Bangor Daily News opinion section in the past, multiple exhaustive research studies, including the 2013 Picus Report and a 2021 report from the Education Law Center titled “Making the Grade: How Fair is School Funding in Your State,” have indicated that the EPS funding formula and an overreliance on local property taxes as a funding source are key drivers of inequitable distribution of school funding in Maine.
This inequitable funding of Maine schools has real-world consequences for school communities and the students and families they serve. According to 2024–2025 data from the Maine Department of Education, per pupil spending that year for a student attending public school in affluent York was $28,513.04, but just 25 miles northwest in less affluent Sanford per pupil spending that year was $19,845.30, an eye-popping nearly $9,000 difference.
The amount of money society invests in a young person shouldn’t be determined by their family’s zip code. I think we can all agree that is unfair, unsustainable, and wrong.
LD 2226 aims to decrease these funding disparities by making long overdue changes to the EPS formula. The most significant change will be to increase the EPS formula’s funding weight for students who are identified as economically disadvantaged. The Maine Department of Education defines a student as economically disadvantaged if they are directly certified by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as having a family income below a defined threshold and being eligible for benefit programs, or their parent(s)/guardian(s) have completed an application for free/reduced lunch meals and the family’s income falls within the program guidelines, or the student’s parent(s)/guardian(s) have completed a form providing economic status information and the family income falls within the program guidelines, or they are identified as homeless, in foster care, or a migratory student.
LD 2226 will inject nearly $11 million into the EPS funding formula to send more money to school communities like those in Sanford, where nearly 60% of its students qualify as economically disadvantaged.
Please reach out to your state representative or state senator and ask them to support Maine’s students and their families by supporting LD 2226.
