FRENCHVILLE – The St. John Valley Reorganization Planning Committee voted unanimously Tuesday evening to submit a letter of intent to the state Department of Education outlining plans for establishing an alternative administrative structure for the area’s four school districts.

The move brings the districts one step closer to meeting the mandates of legislation calling for consolidation of school administration.

In opting for the Alternative Operating Structure, or AOS, the four districts of SAD 27, SAD 33, SAD 24 and the Madawaska School Department will maintain local boards with decision-making power related to local schools.

“This represents a hybrid organizational structure,” said Dianne Tilton, a consultant contracted to assist in the St. John Valley’s district reorganization. “It leaves you more like a school unit than the RSU.”

The original legislation, enacted in 2007, called for a sweeping reorganization of the state’s 298 school districts into 88 regional school units governed by regional school boards.

Under the law, Maine school districts, with some exceptions, must work together to reorganize into larger, more efficient units or reorganize their own administrative structures to reduce costs.

“The overall purpose of the law is to create one superintendency per region,” said state Sen. John Martin, a SAD 27 board member. “It was clear to me the RSU was going nowhere in the Valley since each board wanted to keep local control. The AOS allows that.”

An AOS board will oversee specified central functions, including administration offices for a single superintendent, special education, transportation, core curriculum and the common calendar.

That board, made up of appointed members of the local school committees, would have no decision-making power over the individual schools.

“This is really about self-determination and what you want to do,” Tilton said. “This is really very flexible.”

RSUs, on the other hand, have one central office to implement regionwide programs and are governed by one decision-making board elected from within the region for proportional representation.

More importantly, the state will view the AOS as a single entity when it comes to awarding subsidy dollars for education.

It then becomes the job of the board to determine how to allot those funds to the individual school units.

This, according to some reorganization committee members, could present problems down the road.

“I see this as one of the biggest areas of concern,” said Clayton Belanger, SAD 24 superintendent. “There could be some bickering occurring between the districts unless the division of money is clearly defined.”

The easiest and most effective way to avoid that, Martin said, would be to maintain the status quo.

“My suggestion is to go into this using the dollars each district gets now as the formula for deciding the individual share of the budgets,” Martin said. “Start at the point where you are now and recognize things can change with changes in population.”

The trouble with that solution, said James Grandmaison, SAD 27 financial officer, is the assumption the subsidy dollars for the AOS would equal the current total combined budgets of the four districts.

“The subsidy the [AOS] unit receives as a whole is not going to be the same as you are getting as individuals,” he said. “Each piece together will not equal what we have now.”

Martin did not agree

“The allocation will not change that much,” he said. “A certain amount of dollars follows each child; how you allocate it can be done in different ways.”

Once the AOS is in place, its budget will be decided through two public votes: one asking taxpayers to approve funding in several categories for K-12 programs locally, and a second to vote on each community’s proportional share of the AOS costs.

For there to be any meaningful economic savings, Martin said, the AOS was the better solution, calling the proposed St. John Valley RSU central budget “a sham.”

“No one wants to lay off employees,” Martin said. “As long as people are trying to save jobs you are not going to save a dime.”

Committee member Charlie Clarke of SAD 24 said the savings would be in the long term.

“The savings will come five years down the road,” he said. “People will move on or will do what corporations do with downsizing and layoffs. That’s what happens in the real world.”

Savings, Tilton said, come with those functions which could operate out of the central office, such as transportation and administration of special education programs.

“I really think the AOS is our best chance,” Belanger said. “If we work together [and] believe in it, we will be able to sell it to our communities.”

Committee members will now spend the rest of the summer working out the logistical and procedural details of the proposed AOS.

Meanwhile, a draft of the AOS letter of intent will be sent to each of the local school committees for approval.

Each of the member districts will hold a referendum this fall to decide the fate of the AOS plan.

jbayly@bangordailynews.net

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