WOODVILLE – The Katahdin region school systems will explore forming one school system, but the town school committee won’t yet commit to it, Chairman Steve Fleming said Monday.

Committee members will join regionalization or consolidation discussions with East Millinocket, Medway and Millinocket, Fleming said, but will not rule out joining Lincoln, Lee or even a town as far south as Howland if administratively viable.

“I am going to take my time. I am not going to be hurried,” Fleming said Monday. “In the end, our voters will decide and they will give us the direction we require.”

Under new school reorganization laws, Katahdin towns could form an alternative organizational structure because they have 1,000 or more students and Millinocket has no municipality to its west.

Millinocket and Union 113 Superintendent Sara Alberts is due to mail the DOE a letter of intent declaring the four towns will explore joining. That’s the first step in the consolidation process. School units, the DOE and voters must agree before it can happen.

With Union 113, the towns share a superintendent, administrative services and several programs, but the three towns balked at forming a school unit with Millinocket previously.

Millinocket, its school leaders agree, needs to totally combine or face vast tax increases for its schools — a situation, they say, other towns will soon face with rising costs.

But Woodville officials want to hear all offers, and share lingering doubts about joining Millinocket, including Millinocket schools’ high pension payments and the town’s combative politics. Their largest concerns are more general, Fleming said.

“What can we offer our students in the near future? I am more interested in answering that question,” Fleming said.

Millinocket Town Council Chairman Wallace Paul and Medway Board of Selectmen Chairman David Dickey are pleased at the latest development.

“I very much support going with that alternative structure,” Dickey said. “It would be a great, great thing to work with them and I hope some of the smaller plantations nearby would think about joining us.”

“The bottom line is, these [Katahdin] towns are going to get thrown together,” Paul said. “It’s either going to be in a big, cumbersome unit or a smaller one. My hope is that we can take the concerns about this happening and work them into the mix so that everyone is pleased.”

The state pushed northern Penobscot County to form one large regional school unit of about 27 towns, an effort that failed after lapsed deadlines and administrative difficulties. That prospect, rising costs and the new AOS laws might be fueling the latest initiative.

“What they are saying is, it’s time to talk,” Paul said. “I don’t know where it ends up, but it’s very encouraging.”

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