Area school districts, including Scarborough, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, are denouncing the Legislature for what they say have been unpredictable and unfair cuts to education aid, and are asking for a change to the state funding formula.

The Scarborough Board of Education voted last week to approve the Resolution Seeking Fair, Equitable, and Transparent Funding of Education in Maine. The South Portland Board of Education passed the resolution on Monday night. And the Cape Elizabeth School Board was slated to vote on the resolution on Tuesday night, after the Current’s deadline.

The resolution calls on the Legislature and the governor to fund 55 percent of public education, in accordance with a referendum Maine voters approved in 2004. Currently, the resolution says, state aid is being cut, forcing school districts to make more demands on local taxpayers.

The resolution also says the state must provide more reliable information about how much state aid each district can expect each year, “thus avoiding the disruption and devastation of mid-year cutbacks and curtailments.”

The message is coming as school districts statewide are grappling with a $38 million cut in state education aid that hit them in the middle of their current 2009-2010 budgets. And another $35 million cut is anticipated for the 2010-2011 school year. The curtailments are the result of a $438 million shortfall in the state budget as Augusta wrestles with declining revenues in the economic recession.

Districts last week received preliminary figures showing how much state aid they’ll lose in their upcoming budgets. School budget deliberations are beginning in each district for the new budgets that will take effect July 1.

In addition to Scarborough, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, the communities also named in the resolution are Portland, Falmouth, Yarmouth, and Cumberland and North Yarmouth, which together form School Administrative District 51.

Brian Dell’Olio, chairman of the Scarborough school board, said the heads of the school boards in all the districts decided recently to draw up the resolution so that state lawmakers could have a better understanding of what the communities are facing.

Richard Carter, chairman of the South Portland Board of Education, said he hopes that the resolution “will start the process by which Augusta will honor its commitment to education.”

Carter also said the districts are “being inequitably cut compared to other districts.”

Dell’Olio said the districts felt the message would be more powerful if all of them sent it together.

“It sends a louder message to the state that we’re facing some pretty serious issues here,” he said.

Measures that local districts are considering to cope with their budget shortfalls include larger class sizes, eliminating certain courses such as foreign languages, and staff layoffs.

In Scarborough for example, the schools have just patched a $1.1 million hole in this year’s $35 million school budget caused by a curtailment in state education aid. The schools cut back on discretionary spending and took such measures as cutting some spring sports at the middle school and high school to save about $28,000. The town also has pledged as much as $250,000 in undesignated surplus to the schools if that is needed to balance the budget by June 30.

However, the Scarborough schools have just received preliminary figures indicating that they will lose more than $2 million in state aid for the new school year.

Dell’Olio said that the school board is looking at a variety of ways to cut spending, including cutting back on bus transportation, using less paper, and closing school buildings on weekends and vacations.

Other ideas that have been mentioned eliminating some foreign language classes and advanced placement courses, he said.

“Those certainly are possibilities,” Dell’Olio said, “But I would remind you that everything is a possibility.”

He said no final decisions have been made, and that school officials are looking at such cost-saving alternatives as sharing foreign language classes or advanced placement classes with other districts.

The school board is tentatively scheduled to hold a first reading vote and public hearing on the school budget proposal on Feb. 25, Dell’Olio said. However, he said, the vote and public hearing could be delayed if school board members need more time to craft a budget proposal.

In South Portland, school officials are also considering cost-cutting ideas, including a staff furlough day and using contingency funds to address a $1.2 million curtailment in state aid in the current $39.4 million school budget.

For the new 2010-2011 budget year, the curtailment in state subsidy is expected to be nearly $1.7 million.

School Superintendent Suzanne Godin last week wrote an open letter to the community saying that the curtailment coupled with an increase in local expenses will drive the projected 2010-2011 budget deficit to about $2.4 million.

Godin said South Portland’s costs are increasing in such areas as insurance, fuel, unemployment insurance and debt service, while some school revenues are decreasing. Most city councilors also have said they don’t want to see any tax increase in the new school budget. The council sets the bottom line of the school budget.

Godin said the deficit could mean the loss of 30 to 50 positions throughout the district, the possible closing of some schools, larger class sizes and instituting such measures as having students pay to participate in extracurricular activities.

She declined this week to give specifics on those proposals, saying they are still being worked out. Godin said a more detailed proposal would be given to the school board at the end of this month. Board budget workshops are scheduled for Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. at Memorial Middle School and on Feb 25 at 7 p.m. at Small Elementary School. The board is slated to vote on the budget on March 8.

In Cape Elizabeth, a $600,000 gap in the $20.2 million 2009-2010 school budget is expected to be addressed with the use of school surplus money and other reserve revenue.

School officials there recently were relieved to learn that Cape Elizabeth’s curtailment in state subsidy for the upcoming 2010-2011 school budget is $40,000 – far less than the $900,000 they feared.

However, Cape Elizabeth school officials stress the figure is only preliminary. And in fact, the school subsidy curtailment numbers for Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, South Portland and other school districts could climb even higher for 2010-2011.

That will depend on how lawmakers deal with $5.9 million in penalty money assessed from school districts that didn’t comply with the state school consolidation law. Scarborough, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth are in compliance with the law – those districts didn’t have to consolidate – but they could still lose additional state aid under one scenario involving the penalty funds.

Scarborough could lose about $214,000 more in state aid, South Portland could see an additional curtailment of nearly $231,000 and Cape Elizabeth’s curtailment could climb from $40,000 to almost $150,000.

Cape Elizabeth officials could not be reached for comment before the Current’s deadline.

David Connerty-Marin, spokesman for Maine Education Commissioner Susan Gendron, said, “There’s no question that the current economy creates enormous challenges, which are certainly felt by local school districts.”

Connerty-Marin ascribed the curtailments to the global recession, during which “state revenues have declined by $1.1 billion in a little more than a year.”

He said Gov. John Baldacci “does not support tax increases to balance the budget because they would slow recovery and job creation.”

Despite the budget crisis, Connerty-Marin said, “education funding remains a priority for the Baldacci administration.”

He said that “education accounts for half of every dollar the state spends, which demonstrates the importance the governor places on it.” Connerty-Marin also said that even with the curtailments, education funding for kindergarten through 12th-grade is still $352 million more than when Baldacci took office eight years ago.