SAD 27 board OKs improvement plan > Remaining projects related to disabilities act

FORT KENT – By the time SAD 27 directors were finished with a proposed $1.1 million five-year capital improvement plan, all that was left were projects directly related to the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The targeted projects, totaling $138,000, are eligible for outside funding from the state and needed to bring the district into compliance with the federal law.

SAD 27 officials unveiled the plan during a weekend board meeting and after a study group made up of six board members had toured the district and saw firsthand work that needed to be done.

The total price tag included repairs and maintenance projects at each of the district’s five school buildings and to the bus garage.

Nearly half of the projects were considered eligible for grant funding with $615,650 needed from the regular budget.

Topping the list of priority projects, said Sandra Bernstein, district superintendent of schools, are ADA compliance issues tied directly to the high school’s continued accreditation.

“We should get this work done,” said Lisa Morine, a board member from St. Francis and study group member.

“I am behind this plan,” said Paula Charette, board chairwoman. “We need to get up to state standards.”

Around the rest of the district at the high school and at the Fort Kent, Wallagrass, St. Francis and Eagle Lake elementary schools, projects included repairs to bleachers, replacing plumbing, desks, and ceiling tiles, plumbing repairs, replacing phone systems and soundproofing offices.

At individual buildings, costs over five years run $481,150 at Fort Kent Community High School; $123,600 at Eagle Lake Elementary School; $377,900 at Fort Kent Elementary School; $97,600 at St. Francis Elementary School, and $87,500 at Wallagrass Elementary School.

Some board members were hesitant to act on any part of the plan pending resolution of efforts by the towns of Eagle Lake and Winterville to withdraw from the district. The two towns have been pursuing that action since failure of a districtwide referendum requesting a new cost-sharing formula that officials from the two towns said would be more equitable.

“If we approve all this before Eagle Lake makes their decision we may be linked to something that we will have no control over in the future,” said Priscilla Staples, board member from Fort Kent. Any projects funded by the district at any of the school buildings become that community’s responsibility if a town leaves the district, said James Grandmaison, district financial officer. The sheer size of the plan made other board members hesitant.

“I don’t think it will go too well with the voters,” said Joel Bossie, board member from Wallagrass. “It’s easy for them to accept a one-year plan, but not a five-year plan.”

If the plan was accepted as presented, Charette said, any part of it could be modified and adapted should one or more towns leave the district. “We must look at this as a complete district, as we are now,” she said.

Garfield King, board member from Fort Kent, agreed but said, “It would be more sellable to the public once the uncertainty [of withdrawal] is gone.”

Asking residents to approve a plan of that magnitude, Staples said, is asking too much. “At some point, your taxpayers are going to revolt.”

All of the ADA-related projects, Bernstein said, are eligible for state funding programs under a 30-70 cost-sharing plan.

The grants will fund 70 percent of the $138,000 cost of ADA compliance projects, and the district has five years to repay the 30 percent with no interest.

The remaining $1 million in needed repairs and maintenance, Bernstein said, now become part of each building’s annual budget proposals.