AUGUSTA -- With five days left in this year's legislative session, legislators have yet to take up a bill Gov. John Baldacci pledged to file in an attempt to amend Maine's school-district consolidation law.

Baldacci vetoed a bill Monday that would amend the consolidation law because it contained provisions he opposed. He promised to file his own legislation containing portions of the original legislation that he supports.

Baldacci's legislation would allow merging school districts to design individual cost-sharing formulas and allow districts that currently receive a minimum special-education subsidy to continue to do so after consolidation.

The governor's bill coming forward would also remove a requirement from the consolidation law that member towns of a consolidated school district raise a minimum of 2 mils to contribute to the district. A mill is the amount in property taxes raised for every $1,000 worth of property.

Baldacci's bill would remove a provision from the legislation he vetoed that would permit a school-union administrative structure, a structure Baldacci on Monday called "an inefficient means of school governance."

A school-union structure allows multiple school boards that report to one superintendent.

As local planners of a regional school district that would include Fayette, Winthrop and Maranacook-area schools wait for cost-sharing arrangements to become legal, they have stopped work planning their merged school unit.

Cost-sharing formulas would allow towns of a consolidated school district to base their tax contributions on measures other than property value.

While the consolidation amendments are a topic of Statehouse conversation, local parents have not yet felt a need to weigh in.

"I think it's sort of been happening in the background without us choosing to focus on it," said Manchester resident Lauren Whitman, a member of the Maranacook Middle School Parent Association.

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, Ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com