STANDISH – Joining a growing number of towns throughout Maine that have withdrawn or are attempting to withdraw from consolidated school districts, leaders in Standish and Frye Island are seeking the public’s approval for further study of a possible secession from School Administrative District 6.
At a special town meeting on Jan. 14, Standish residents will vote on a $25,000 appropriation to hire consultants that would explore the financial and logistical issues involving a possible withdrawal from the Bonny Eagle school district, of which Standish has been a member since the early 1960s.
At this week’s special Town Council meeting, held during Tuesday’s snowstorm, members voted unanimously, 5-0, to approve the warrant for the Jan. 14 vote. Councilors Philip Pomerleau and Margaret Spencer did not attend the meeting.
The study, which would likely be conducted by educational consultants Ray Poulin and Norm Higgins, who have worked on other towns’ withdrawal studies, would also examine the implications of a Frye Island withdrawal from SAD 6, which serves Buxton, Hollis and Limington, as well. The Standish council expects the town of Frye Island to contribute $3,250 toward the $25,000 required for the study, but according to the Dec. 17 meeting minutes, “confirmation from Frye Island had not yet been received that they would pay their share.”
According to a memorandum of understanding regarding the study, the two towns will select a consultant “who is mutually agreeable to the municipal officers of both towns.” If there is a disagreement, the vote of the Standish municipal officers will dictate which firm is hired.
In the past, Poulin has served as a teacher, principal, superintendent and deputy commissioner of education, while Higgins has worked as a teacher, principal and superintendent. They are both former superintendents of SAD 4 in Piscataquis County and both worked on Gov. John Baldacci’s school district reorganization team when statewide consolidation took place in 2008.
Poulin said the study, if approved by voters, could take as long as six months and would include a variety of demographic and financial analyses.
“That’s a lot about census data, a lot about student enrollment, and we’ll do some financial analysis,” Poulin said. “We’ll look at the history of the finances in that area. In SAD 6, we’ll take a look at what they’ve done. We’ll take a look at Standish and that kind of thing.
“We’ll try to figure out some reasonable idea of what it might cost to do it on their own, if they decide to have a municipal school district, rather than remain with SAD 6,” Poulin said.
The consultants will not make a final recommendation on the wisdom of withdrawal, Poulin said.
Council Chairman Mike Blanck said he was interested in exploring withdrawal because SAD 6 is holding more than $600,000 in state aid that he believes ought to be put to immediate use.
“We’re not very happy with what the school board proposed to do,” Blanck said. “SAD 6 is getting over $600,000 back from the state, which was unanticipated, and instead of reducing the amount that the towns are going to get billed, they decided not to do it.”
Charlotte Dufresne, the chairwoman of the SAD 6 board of directors, said that the district had faced a $382,000 curtailment in state funding last year, and that the board had decided to hold onto the state aid in the face of potential future curtailments.
“The board comprised of all the towns, representatives from all the towns, decided that we would sit on the money and see what happens,” Dufresne said. “The potential for the curtailment, I think that was the biggest thing. We’ve seen three curtailments in the past five years.”
According to Standish Town Manager Gordon Billington, the town’s tax rate has increased by 48 cents per $1,000 of property valuation this fiscal year, due to a town-wide property devaluation and a $310,000 increase in the school budget, mostly due to new teachers’ retirement funding obligations. (The state has shifted the burden of paying teachers’ retirement to municipalities.) Billington said that other school districts had rebated similar state aid packages to taxpayers, and that Standish should have received about $240,000 from SAD 6.
Dufresne said that each school faces a different set of problems.
“Other districts can do what they want to do. That doesn’t mean that SAD 6 has to do that,” she said. “You can’t compare SAD 6 to Portland or you can’t really compare SAD 6 to Scarborough. The tax base is a little different.
“If Standish wants to go through a study to see if they can secede from the district, that is their prerogative,” she said. “As far as the money from the state, we discussed it, the business manager made a presentation, and the board decided that we’d just sit on the money and look at it in a new budget year.”
Blanck predicted that the state aid would never make its way into the Standish coffers.
“Supposedly it’s going to go into an account,” he said. “But somehow these monies tend to get spent on other things.”
The council’s decision to pursue the withdrawal study was spurred by a letter Billington received from Frye Island Town Manager Wayne Fournier on Sept. 5, expressing concern about the town’s nearly $1.4 million school assessment.
In response to Fournier’s concerns, the Standish Town Council considered Frye Island’s letter and decided to investigate the issue further to determine whether pursuing withdrawal from SAD 6 is feasible, Billington said. He said the two towns annually pay a combined $10 million to SAD 6.
Standish, which was a founding member of the district in the 1960s, has several elementary schools in the Bonny Eagle school system. The Bonny Eagle middle and high schools are located at the Standish-Buxton town line. The former Standish High School, located in Sebago Lake Village, was vacated after formation of the district and later converted to a community theater.
While it is the first time Standish has probed the possibility of exiting SAD 6, Frye Island has attempted secession before. In April 2001, three years after Frye Island seceded from Standish with the condition that it continue to pay school taxes, islanders tried to withdraw from the district, arguing that it shouldn’t have to pay so much toward a school system it didn’t send students to. Twelve years later, Frye Island still has no year-round residents and doesn’t send any students to Bonny Eagle.
LD 500, enacted by the Legislature in 2001, prevented Frye Island from withdrawing from the school district and prohibits any future efforts to withdraw. In 2004, the Legislature enacted LD 1, which required towns to contribute to their school districts based on the number of students in the school system.
According to Blanck, a potential withdrawal from SAD 6 could be years away.
“We’re going to look at the pros and cons from an educational point of view,” he said. “Then the council is going to have to make a decision on whether we want to go ahead. It’s roughly a two-year process.”
Poulin commended the Standish councilors’ approach, in comparison with towns that have opted for immediate withdrawal.
“They’re doing it the right way, I might add,” Poulin said. “Some school districts, people had formed a petition … What Standish is doing makes a lot more sense to me. They want to look at it before they even decide if they want to get out, and that makes a lot more sense. They’re doing their homework first.”
A CLOSER LOOK
A special town meeting regarding hiring consultants to gauge the financial impact of SAD 6 withdrawal will be held in the council chambers at the Standish municipal building on Route 35 at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 14. Voting will be conducted using paper ballots.
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