ORRINGTON – Residents voiced concerns about costs, school choice and loss of local control at Monday’s public hearing about joining the proposed Regional School Unit 15 with Brewer and eight other neighboring communities.

Superintendent Allen Snell and school committee chairman Kyle Casburn gave a short overview of RSU 15, basically telling residents that under the current draft, costs are expected to increase.

“The reason for that is there is a tremendous difference in the salary structure between Brewer and the … rural areas” involved in the proposed school district, Snell said.

Orrington is working with Brewer, Dedham, the SAD 63 communities of Holden, Eddington and Clifton, and the CSD 8 communities of Aurora, Amherst, Great Pond and Osborn, to create RSU 15 under the state’s school consolidation law.

During local referendums on Jan. 27, the 10 communities will individually vote on whether to join RSU 15. The vote will be a thumbs-up or thumbs-down decision.

“Nobody likes this,” said Casburn, who also is chairman of the RSU planning committee. “It’s a shotgun marriage.”

While consolidating the central offices of the school units in the proposed district would save about $400,000, those savings would be more than offset by projected increases in other expenses.

Casburn said the projected net increase for the 10 communities involved would total approximately $2.8 million over the first three years.

“It will be very difficult for the school committee to recommend” joining the proposed district, Casburn said. “The costs for year two and three far outweigh the cost savings.”

“It’s pretty clear right now that we’re not going to approve it,” resident Bruce Gray said at the meeting. “Brewer is not going to approve it. Brewer takes a big hit.”

There is a penalty for Orrington residents if they decide not to join the new school district, he said.

“If the plan is voted down the penalty, that the state built in, is about $107,000 the first year,” Casburn said. “It’s not an insignificant amount.”

Orrington gets about $3 million in state subsidy, which would be reduced by the penalty amount if residents vote in January not to join.

“We have no idea” what future penalties would be for not joining, Selectman Christine Lavoie said.

The 21 residents at the meeting also raised questions and concerns about losing local control, school choice, what would happen to the public library that is located in the Center Drive School, and what would become of the recreation programs that are run at the school.

School choice is guaranteed, Snell said. The other items, he said, would need to be addressed by the new RSU 15 school board.

The RSU 15 planning committee is scheduled to meet again Dec. 4 to work on the draft plan, and another public hearing on the plan is scheduled for 7 p.m. Dec. 8. A selectmen’s meeting will follow the hearing.

“This is a very, very important thing that we’re talking about,” resident Bill Richardson said. “And I think people need to be involved.”