DOVER-FOXCROFT – Dover-Foxcroft, Charleston, Monson and Sebec residents will vote March 1 on whether to build a proposed $10,797,500 elementary school in Dover-Foxcroft that will be funded 100 percent by the state.

The Legislature’s recent approval of a new school funding formula actually will provide the district with a new school at no local cost, according to SAD 68 Superintendent John Dirnbauer.

“This is very good news for the residents of SAD 68,” Dirnbauer said Monday.

The proposed construction project includes a two-story, 59,000-square-foot addition that will share a wall with SeDoMoCha Middle School and the renovation of about 10,000 square feet of the middle school.

The new elementary school, which will house pre-kindergarten through grade-four pupils and the superintendent’s office, has received the approval of the State Board of Education.

Dirnbauer said that because all four towns raise at least 8.26 mills of tax for education, the proposed new school will have no local tax impact.

“Under the new school funding formula, SAD 68 is scheduled to receive approximately $300,000 in additional state aid for 2005-2006 and another $425,000 above that in 2006-2007; thus, over a two-year period, SAD 68 will have received about $725,000 above the current level of state aid,” Dirnbauer said. “In addition to the new funding formula, the tax relief measures approved by the Legislature will cover 100 percent of the cost of the new school.”

That information was confirmed Monday by Jim Rier, policy director of school funding with the state department of education.

Rier said that the entire project will be paid through state sources over a 20-year period. He said that since SAD 68 stayed within the state-approved funding for the project, the costs become part of the state’s allocation to the district each year.

The school construction costs will be added to all other allocation that the district receives each year, and the local share of the allocation will not increase, he said.

If the new school is approved, it is expected that directors will offer Dover-Foxcroft the Morton Avenue school building and the superintendent’s office on Mayo Street.

To explain the entire project further, directors have scheduled 6:30 p.m. public hearings in the district as follows:

. Feb. 2 at SeDoMoCha Middle School.

. Feb. 9 at the former Charleston Elementary School.

. Feb. 10 at Harland Ladd Municipal Building in Sebec.

. Feb. 16 at Monson Elementary School.