RSU hearings set for tonight

By Elna Seabrooks
Staff Writer
    STACYVILLE — Public hearings tonight on a plan approved by the Department of Education for a Regional School Unit (RSU) are being held at Katahdin Middle/High School and Southern Aroostook Community School.
    CSD 9 Superintendent Terry Comeau said the public will be able to discuss the consolidation plan and ask questions at the various hearings. “It is a bare bones plan to not hamstring a new school board should the plan be voted in at the referendum on Tuesday, Feb. 15,” stated Comeau. “A new school board will take care of the entire group of towns that have agreed to consolidate if the voters approve the plan.”
    The districts affected by the plan, should they agree to consolidate and form a single district, are: SAD 25 (Stacyville, Patten, Sherman, Mt. Chase); CSD 9 (Island Falls, Dyer Brook, Oakfield, Merrill, Smyrna, Crystal); Moro Plantation and Hersey. Approximately 835 students would be affected.
    “The idea is that we would form a new board and turn the assets over to that new board and function as a single unit. If approved at the June 30 referendum, all of the current school districts in the plan’s combination will cease to exist,” Comeau stated.
    Under the new school district all employees would be transferred to the new unit and continue under their current collective bargaining agreement until it expires and the parties agree to a new contract. “The superintendents will be through. They will be done,” Comeau stated. Since SAD 25, Moro Plantation and Hersey share John Doe as the superintendent, only Doe and Comeau are affected by the June 30 date because both of their contracts expire June 30.
    Some of the thinking behind consolidation was a savings to the state. “We haven’t found any savings,” Comeau said. However, he held out a glimmer of hope. “Perhaps in the long run there might be (some savings). But, we don’t think in the short run there will be. And, we haven’t been able to pull any long-term ones. But, it’s possible.”
    CSD was hit by losing $80,000 in state funding as a penalty for not consolidating and also for not voting to consolidate. SAD 25 averted penalties for a year because residents voted to join a unit that was turned down later in another consolidation attempt. Several bills are pending in the legislature to modify the consolidation law.
    The meetings tonight will be held as follows: SAD 25, 6 p.m., at Katahdin Middle/High School auditorium; CSD 9, 7 p.m. at Southern Aroostook Community School in the library; Moro Plantation School Department, 7:30 p.m., Katahdin Middle/High School auditorium and Hersey School Department, 8 p.m., Katahdin Middle/High School auditorium.
    For more information call SAD 25, 365-4272 or CSD 9, 757-8223.