State requires SAD 31 vote on loans up to $4M for school renovations

HOWLAND – SAD 31 voters must approve spending as much as $4 million in state funds to renovate the Penobscot Valley High School complex before the money can be allocated, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said Thursday.

A majority vote in a special referendum is among several steps state law requires with the funding process. It’s particularly important in SAD 31, a district that has struggled for more than five years to upgrade its high school, Gendron said.

“This project has been so controversial locally that the right thing to do is put it out to voters so they have a say, because this will obligate them to increase taxes,” Gendron said Thursday afternoon during a telephone interview from Idaho, where she is vacationing.

Under the loan plan, SAD 31 would have to repay the state as much as 30 percent of the loan over 10 years, not 20 years as previously stated, Gendron said.

Gendron’s statement contradicted what interim Superintendent Jerry White told the SAD 31 board of directors during a meeting Dec. 21. The board voted 10-3 that night to apply for the renovation loan after Gendron indicated to school officials that the state would look favorably upon loaning money to renovate PVHS and Hichborn Middle School, which is connected to the high school.

Directors Michael Pearson and June Grey, who represent Enfield, and Director Noreen Shorey of Burlington voted against applying for the loan. Shorey questioned whether directors were considering the financial implications for taxpayers of rebuilding the school.

“What I have a problem with is that we’re saying, ‘OK, we’re going to borrow this money and you, all these hundreds of people [taxpayers] will have to pay it back, just on our say so,'” Shorey said during the Dec. 21 meeting.

The application does not necessarily mean that SAD 31 will get the loan, commit to the renovations or drop its unprecedented legal appeal of the state Board of Education’s denial Oct. 12 of its plan to build a new $8.9 million secondary school for grades seven through 12.

The Dec. 21 vote put the appeal on hold for 60 days. State officials indicated they would speed up the loan application process.

White and SAD 31 board Chairman John Neel said Thursday they were receptive to seeking voter approval for the renovation project, which, if approved by the Maine Department of Education, would allocate as much as $2 million per school.

“One of the issues of the denial of the school project [on Oct. 12] was the fact that the state board did not allow the towns to express their displeasure,” said White, who was checking with state school officials in Augusta Thursday morning on whether a referendum was required.

“I would certainly want [a referendum vote] if we could do it for free,” Neel said, seeing only a special election’s cost as a potential objection. “I would want to see whether a majority were behind renovating the school.”

White said he hoped to run the loan application to Augusta next week.

If an election were held tomorrow, Neel said he believed that renovating the school would be supported by a majority of voters in SAD 31, which serves Burlington, Edinburg, Enfield, Howland, Maxfield and Passadumkeag.