Opinion ID: 1470390
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether Swan's Island's Policy Implicates Section 2951(2)

Text: [¶ 16] Having concluded that section 2951(2) bars the use of both state and municipal funds for payment of tuition at private sectarian schools, it follows that Swan's Island's subsidy policy is unlawful if it results in the Town using its funds for that purpose. The Joyces assert that it does not, rather they maintain that the policy provides a compensatory subsidy directly to them from the Town's general fundspaid only after they make their monthly tuition paymentsthat they may then use in any way they like. Taking that view, they argue that the subsidy has nothing to do with education funding. We disagree. [¶ 17] The first problem with this argument is the implicit assumption that the Town's general funds used to pay the subsidy are purely its own, that is, separate and distinct from state funds. In fact, the State provides a significant share of the Town's funds for education. 20-A M.R.S. §§ 15671(1), 15752 (2007). [4] Absent state education funding, the Town would in all likelihood be unable to fund the subsidy. To say that the Town may segregate state education funds to pay tuition at approved schools, thereby making available purely town funds to pay a subsidy for tuition at an unapproved school, is to invite a shell game with public monies. We decline to endorse such a scenario. The funding system established by Title 20-A results in a combination of state and municipal funds to pay for education. See 20-A M.R.S. § 15752. [¶ 18] Beyond the issue of where the Town's funding for the subsidy originates is the reality that the subsidy is simply a straw man for tuition payments by the Town to the Joyces' sectarian school. Notwithstanding the Joyces' effort to characterize the subsidy as unrelated to education funding: (1) the only way to receive the subsidy is to pay tuition to a non-approved school; [5] (2) subject to a cap, the amount of the subsidy is equal to, and varies directly with, the amount of tuition paid to the non-approved school; and (3) the subsidy may only be claimed upon proof of the amount of tuition actually paid each month. In their brief, the Joyces themselves describe the result as being essentially reimbursed by the Town, out of general Town funds, for the tuition they paid to their private school that month. [¶ 19] It is irrelevant whether Swan's Island's public funds are paid directly to the Joyces' school as tuition, or paid to the Joyces immediately after they pay the tuition themselvesthe subsidy's direct correlation to sectarian school tuition makes its intent unmistakable, and the end result the same. Given the subsidy's unseverable connection to a result barred by section 2951(2), what the Town cannot do with funds received through Title 20-A, it also cannot do with its general funds. [6] The entry is: Judgment affirmed. CLIFFORD, J., concurring. [¶ 20] Because the result in this case is dictated by the decision in Anderson v. Town of Durham, 2006 ME 39, 895 A.2d 944, I concur.