School boards begin merger talks

By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — The SAD 29 and SAD 70 school boards took their first steps towards forming one consolidated Regional School Unit Tuesday, Feb. 2 during a special committee meeting held in Houlton.
    Meeting with attorney Richard Spencer of the Portland law firm Drummond Woodsom via a phone conference, the two groups laid out the initial groundwork for forming a combined Regional School Unit in a two-and-one-half hour meeting.
    Representing SAD 29 were Superintendent Stephen Fitzpatrick, secretary Kellie Farnham and board members Bruce Clark, Liz Anderson, Frances Grant and Sandra Wilkins. Representing SAD 70 were Superintendent Bob McDaniel and board members Tracy Rockwell, David Cassidy, Tom Horton, Estella Lane, Lauren Asselin, Melissa Ivey and Joel Oliver.
    According to McDaniel, the two school boards need to file letters of intent with the state Department of Education to begin the formal process of becoming an RSU. SAD 70’s school board agreed to sign its letter of intent at its Monday night meeting. The SAD 29 board is expected to sign its letter when it meets March 1.
    A referendum vote would be required first in SAD 70 and then, if it passes, in SAD 29 before the two schools could join forces.
    For SAD 70, joining an RSU is a necessity since the state-mandated smaller schools had to consolidate. SAD 70 had been in talks with SAD 25 (Stacyville, Sherman, Mount Chase and Patten) and CSD 9 (Crystal, Dyer Brook, Island Falls, Merrill, Oakfield and Smyrna) on forming a three-school RSU, but after four meetings the Hodgdon board pulled out of that plan at its December meeting.
    Instead, the board sought to re-open talks with neighboring SAD 29, due to its close proximity. Houlton High School is just five miles away from Hodgdon schools.
    According to McDaniel, to form an RSU, a school system needs a minimum of 1,200 students. SAD 29 had more than 1,300 students without combining with another school district and has been standing on its own as an RSU. Hodgdon High School, in comparison, has just 165 students.
    If the two districts do join forces, the first step would be the creation of one, consolidated school board. Both the SAD 29 and SAD 70 boards presently have 13 members. Simply combining the two to form one, 26-member board would not be feasible, according to both Fitzpatrick and McDaniel. Therefore, figuring out how many members to have becomes a challenge.
    “The most important issue that people have to deal with is to see if they can get agreement on how their boards will be set up,” Spencer said. “Who is on the board? What towns do they represent? And how is the voting power allocated? That is the first hurdle for a group like this get over.”
    Once that hurdle is passed, the board would then need to come up with a cost-sharing formula so that no one community was disadvantage by joining the RSU, Spencer added.
    Thirdly, figuring out what happens to existing debt for the two districts will be another factor to overcome.
    “If you can get over those hurdles the rest is just detail work,” Spencer said.
    Addressing the first hurdle, the committee members were presented with a proposal on how the new RSU board would be comprised that called for 13-member board, using a weighted vote system. Nine of those seats were proposed to be from SAD 29, while SAD 70 would have four. Houlton, with a population of 6,317, would have the lion’s share of the seats under the proposal with seven board members.
    The following is a breakdown of how the proposed new board would be formed, based on Spencer’s recommendations per population figures, including population, number of directors and amount of votes each director would have under the weighted vote system.
    Amity, Carey, Haynesville — population 547; one board member; 47 votes.
    Hodgdon — 1,250; one board member; 106 votes.
    Linneus — 882; one director; 75 votes.
    Ludlow/New Limerick — 915; one director; 78 votes.
    Hammond/Monticello — 885; one director; 75 votes.
    Houlton — 6,317; seven directors; 77 votes per director.
    Littleton — 946; one director; 81 votes.
    “There are two sets of laws you must comply with when forming an RSU board,” Spencer said. “The voting power of the individual director must accurately reflect the number of people they represent. The other requirement is part of state law which says no one member can have more than 5 percent voting power.”
    SAD 29 member Grant asked if some of Houlton’s votes could be shared with Hodgdon.
    “It would be difficult to reduce Houlton to less than 50 percent based on the population,” Spencer said.
    According to the 2005 figures, Houlton makes up 53 percent of the total population based on the figure of 11,742 for the two districts.
    Concerns about having a school closed by the new board were also addressed by Spencer.
    “Under the school reorganization law, there was concern about one community closing a small school in the other’s community.” Spencer said. “The way the law is written, it takes a two-thirds vote of the board before you can close a school.”
    SAD 29 has operated under a weighted vote system, but has rarely had to use the weighted system to break ties.
    The group discussed the possibility of adding another member to Hodgdon, but decreasing the amount of weight each had. That plan would create a 14-member school board. The exact number of directors for each town will not be finalized until a later meeting.
    “My knee jerk reaction was this didn’t look good,” Horton said. “But after really looking at all the numbers, I’m good with it.”
    “We really have to sell it to the public,” Oliver said. “The average person in Hodgdon, if we had two directors, it might sell easier.”
    “It’s imperative for us as board members to make sure the public is informed,” Grant said. “We have to make this process very public. It’s up to us to explain it to those in our community.”
    The group also decided to expand its committee to include members of the public. Those who are interested in joining the committee should contact Fitzpatrick at 532-6555 or McDaniel at 532-3015. The two committees will meet again Tuesday, Feb.23 at 6 p.m. in the Superintendent’s Conference Room at Houlton High School. The meeting is open to the public.