Union 113 merger plan to go to Legislature

EAST MILLINOCKET – The Union 113 (East Millinocket, Medway, Woodville) school board Tuesday night approved submitting a plan to the Legislature to work in a cooperative district with the Millinocket School Department.

The 7-1 vote will give the School Leadership District a chance to be reviewed by attorneys and other officials in Augusta before potentially being voted on by the Legislature later in this session. If approved by the Legislature, the SLD proposal would still need to be approved by the individual school boards and voters in the towns.

Developed by Keith Ober, interim superintendent for the two districts, with help from local school boards and residents, the SLD would merge the two school systems and allow the towns to share collective resources while maintaining individual school facilities. The district would have a single superintendent and would be governed by a single 15-member board with five people from each of the three largest towns.

The Millinocket school board already approved the draft legislation’s submission, although the panel may choose to review the changes at tonight’s special meeting, Ober said after the Union 113 approval. Ober added that he likely would wait until Thursday to send the proposal to officials in Augusta.

Ober began Tuesday night’s meeting by explaining that the proposed funding formula for the SLD uses an average of each town’s property values, population and school enrollment. Of the $11.6 million it currently costs to operate the schools in the three towns, East Millinocket pays roughly 27.7 percent, Medway pays 19.7 percent and Millinocket pays 52.6 percent. Under the SLD, the towns would pay 28.3 percent, 15.5 percent and 56.1 percent respectively for their portions of the district’s operating budget, Ober said.

Funding percentages that differ under the SLD would change no more than 1 percent during a given year to offset the impact of budget changes, Ober said. Due to changes in property values, populations and enrollments, each town’s funding responsibility could change each year.

While students would have the benefit of pursuing programs at a wider variety of schools, Ober said much of the SLD’s actual cost savings would be determined by how many efficiencies the boards created in the district. Preliminary data suggested, however, that the three towns could save roughly $130,000 a year by having a single superintendent in a single office, Ober said.