Alas, Maine's two U.S. senators provided the votes needed to move $10 billion meant to reverse teacher layoffs and $16 billion to cover state Medicaid costs through the Senate on Wednesday. (Update, Aug. 5, 10:03 a.m.: A final Senate vote is expected today. 12:55 p.m.: And, it passes.)

And it was Sen. Olympia Snowe's exhortation that got Nancy Pelosi to call her chamber back to Washington to act on the education jobs bill in time for the start of the school year.

Presumably, Maine's school districts will benefit to the tune of $39 million from the education jobs measure and, for now, the Maine Department of Education won't have to pony up $40 million in cuts to cover the Medicaid hole.

But will Maine's $39 million share from the education jobs package actually restore lost teacher jobs?

First, there's the bureaucracy to deal with.

"It would clearly take some months for us to pull it together," Maine Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin told me when I first asked him about the education jobs package two weeks ago.

That's because, if the money is handled at all like economic stimulus funds, states will have to apply for their share, the feds will have to approve it and state education officials will have to figure out how to distribute it.

Second, school districts might be skeptical about another federal handout.

After all, they're already dealing with the reality that their share of economic stimulus money will dry up after the upcoming school year.

"That's the cliff that people are talking about," Augusta schools Superintendent Cornelia Brown told me two weeks ago.

The education jobs package is likely another pool of one-time money.

So, if districts return positions to their payrolls in September and the revenue outlook doesn't improve substantially for the 2011-12 school year, the cliff might be that much steeper during upcoming school budget season.

Update, Aug. 5, 10:06 a.m.:

David Connerty-Marin of the Department of Education offered an update in an email this morning about the education jobs package and the speed with which the money will trickle down to the state and local levels:

"We need to wait for the guidance, but I now sense they’ll (the U.S. Department of Education) be moving pretty quickly on that. I wouldn’t want to speculate on what the guidance says, but the more we see the more it looks like this will be a real benefit – even as a one-year stop gap – for many districts."

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