SALEM TOWNSHIP — RSU 58 school board members agreed unanimously Thursday night that sending Mt. Abram High School students to another school district is not an option to cut costs to taxpayers.
Directors had agreed at recent meetings that they needed to understand if there might be potential savings if they closed the high school and sent students to another district.
At Thursday’s meeting, Business Manager Luci Milewski presented a line-by-line itemization of cost centers and changes, based on the most recent figures available.
After the two-hour discussion, directors agreed they would be faced with paying approximately $8.2 million, which initially would appear to save the district $846,000. The bad news, Milewski explained, was that the district would lose $1 million of tuition for the 71 students who attend from unorganized territories. That would leave taxpayers to cover up to $200,000 between the lost revenue and the increased expenses to send high school students elsewhere.
The district also would lose any local control over future cost increases.
Directors also agreed that parents in Kingfield, Strong, Avon, and Phillips needed to know whether their children would be able to stay in the district in grades K-12.
The suggestion to close Mt. Abram High School has been met with vocal opposition from many community members.
“If we tuition our kids out, we’ll be putting our kids in the same position that Carrabassett Valley and Eustis are in,” director Marc Edwards said.
The district pays staff members from different cost centers, Milewski explained. For example, one teacher has students at the high school and at the Kingfield Elementary School. Another teacher works as a career counselor and also teaches art.
Tuition for special education students, she said, does not include other required special education costs. If a student requires more expensive services, such as speech therapy, those costs to the district could increase. Each year, those costs change, because the student population changes.
“My concern is for our taxpayers,” board member Faith Richard said. “My fear is that once we have them out there (in another district), they can say to us they can’t teach our kids for what they did a year ago.”
Milewski explained that the students who attend Foster Technology Center don’t pay tuition, but RSU 58 pays fees or costs for materials such as books. The district also must budget for assistive technology and other services. She said if a student broke an arm, for example, he or she might need short-term help with a wheelchair or note-taking in classes.
“We design services based on what we know currently, but that obviously can change during the summer and throughout the year,” Milewski said.
Technology costs were another undefinable category, because the district leases computers, and the students will need computers that the receiving district may not be able to provide or service. The receiving district may even have different computers, so calculating a budget decrease is difficult at this time.
The district employs two technology staff members, but closing the high school would reduce the need for one of those employees. Milewski said that both service technology needs at all grade levels, but the budgeted amounts are line items under the high school budget.
Directors agreed they would review options to keep a school in each community but would not guarantee each school would retain its K-8 elementary school status. They also agreed to communicate with the Kingfield Independent School Committee, which is researching the option of withdrawing from the district.
Merv Wilson, chairman of that committee, told the board Thursday night that two factors would be impetus for the town to consider withdrawal.
“Closing Mt. Abram High School or closing the elementary school would be reasons for us to withdraw from the district,” he said.
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