PITTSFIELD – Four area legislators agreed Tuesday night to submit bipartisan legislation to help SAD 53 avoid costly penalties for failing to find a school consolidation partner.

The district had approached a half-dozen other districts, from Madison to Bangor, seeking a partner, but was rejected by all. An agreement finally was struck with SAD 59, and the two districts now share a superintendent.

SAD 53 did everything right, said Rep. Stacey Fitts, R-Pittsfield. “I held SAD 53 and SAD 59 up as leaders in the consolidation process.”

But when the final consolidation vote was taken in June, SAD 53 passed the plan and SAD 59 defeated it. As a result, Maine Department of Education Commissioner Susan Gendron determined that SAD 53 must pay a $155,000 penalty – even though the district followed all the rules and voted in the affirmative.

“We find ourselves in a unique dilemma,” SAD 53 board Chairman Robert Downs said. “We’re trying to avoid litigation against the state. We can’t afford either the time or money.”

Downs said that although SAD 53, which consists of Pittsfield, Burnham and Detroit, is the only district now in this situation, it is expected to get plenty of company after several other school systems vote on consolidation plans on Nov. 4.

“That is not what was supposed to happen,” Sen. Carol Weston, R-Waldo County, told school board and Regional Planning Committee members Tuesday night. She said that in the process of crafting the consolidation legislation, it was clear early on that districts that followed the process would not get penalized. Weston serves on the Legislature’s Education Committee.

“That promise was made again and again,” she said. “There were promises written on napkins moments before the vote that then disappeared. But it is new to us as legislators that the commissioner has reversed herself.”

Fitts, Weston, Sen. Lisa Marrache, D-Waterville, and Rep. John Piotti, D-Unity, agreed to submit bipartisan legislation that would clarify the penalty section of the consolidation law.

Superintendent Michael Gallagher presented a draft bill with language that would change the date for final consolidations, remove the penalty if a district has voted in the affirmative and give districts more time to find partners.

“I think it’s a great idea to draft language that addresses your specific problems,” Piotti said. This way, the SAD 53 issues wouldn’t get “lost in the fray,” he said.

Weston added, “There will be bills to correct [the consolidation plan] for years to come.”

The four legislators said they could fast-track the bill so it could be passed in early January to allow SAD 53 time to create its budget for next year. “This is time-sensitive,” Weston said. If the bill is passed as emergency legislation, she explained, it could be effective immediately.

The four also agreed to submit bipartisan legislation to repeal a requirement that public schools that have pre-kindergarten programs provide transportation for 4-year-old participants. Fitts said it was an unfunded mandate, and no one who voted for it realized the implications.

SAD 53 has estimated that it will cost the district at least $133,000 more a year to provide monitors on the buses, pay for increased bus runs and retrofit buses. The only other option for the district is to eliminate the program or turn it over to Kennebec Valley Community Action Program.

Elementary Principal Faye Anderson said that if KVCAP took it over, only 17 of the program’s current 49 children would qualify for KVCAP’s income guidelines. No one at the meeting was in favor of dropping the program.

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