BY KELLEY BOUCHARD

Staff Writer

The Maine Department of Education may seek money from the Legislature to help school districts offset budget-busting fuel prices this winter, a spokesman said Monday.

The department plans to survey districts across the state in the coming weeks to determine which ones failed to budget enough to cover rising heating oil and diesel costs, said spokesman David Connerty-Marin.

Some district officials say they've budgeted enough or locked in favorable fuel prices for the 2008-09 school year. Others say fuel could cost several hundred thousand dollars more than anticipated and result in significant spending cuts in operations and programs.

"We need to figure out who's in need and find a way to help those folks," Connerty-Marin said. "For some, it's a problem. For others, it's not. It's all over the place."

Education Commissioner Susan Gendron plans to tell the Legislature's appropriations committee about the fuel survey when she meets with the panel on Aug. 21, Connerty-Marin said.

Depending on the survey's findings, he said, Gendron may seek a supplemental budget appropriation at a future committee meeting to help districts pay higher fuel costs.

The department also will use the survey to develop a long-term plan to improve energy efficiency of school buildings throughout Maine, Connerty-Marin said.

The survey will seek information on the age and condition of buildings and their energy systems, as well as past and projected fuel use and costs.

The Maine State Planning Office reported last week in its biweekly summer oil survey that the statewide average cash price for No. 2 heating oil had fallen 20 cents to $4.42 per gallon. That's still nearly $2 per gallon more than last year.

School districts typically pay less than the cash price because they buy hundreds of thousands of gallons. When districts developed 2008-09 fuel budgets last spring, some figured they'd have to spend as much as $4 per gallon, and they were right.

Other districts knew they would have to spend more than last year, but their estimates were off by as much as $1 per gallon. Officials in the Bonny Eagle school district, west of Portland, and School Administrative District 22, near Bangor, each have said that their fuel costs will be as much as $350,000 over budget.

House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, said many legislators are concerned about higher fuel costs hurting schools as well as homeowners this winter. He said the Legislature is expected to consider shifting money in an already tight state budget and dipping into emergency funds to help out.

"We're going to have to make allowances for school budgets and municipal budgets that are strained by higher fuel costs," Cummings said. "We want to limit the impact on educational programs."