By MECHELE COOPER
Staff Writer Friday, January 12, 2007

The SAD 16 Board of Directors drafted a letter Wednesday that calls his plan to reduce the number of Maine school districts from 152 to 26 a "top-down" plan pushed on Maine's educators without regard for their cost-cutting efforts.

The governor says his proposal would save $250 million over three years if it gets legislative approval.

According to the letter: "This is a top-down plan being pushed without any recognition of local wishes or of any steps individual districts, such as SAD 16, have made on their own to consolidate and improve administrative operating efficiencies."

SAD 16 board member Tom Austin said the governor's plan needs to be thought through more carefully, but that the SAD 16 board was afraid a review would not be allowed before legislators considered it as a budget item this year.

SAD 16 officials said the letter will be sent to Sen. Earle McCormick, R-West Gardiner, and Rep. Sharon Treat, D-Farmingdale, and possibly published in the media.

If the governor's proposal is approved, SAD 16 students would be in the same district as many other students in southern Kennebec County towns, including Augusta, Readfield, Winthrop and Chelsea, Austin said.

He said consolidating school activities is nothing new. The idea has been floating around for a while.

"We've had quite a bit of success with this," Austin said Thursday. "For example, we share a lot of the office services with Dresden, our office does all the accounting and reporting for both districts, and we share a special ed director with a number of districts.

"These are the things the governor seems to envision, but the plan is too drastic a move."

Board member Dan Shagoury worries SAD 16's cost-sharing -- such as buying oil cooperatively with the city of Hallowell, sharing services with municipalities and accepting tuition students from Dresden -- would be undone by the governor's plan.

"We've been working closely with Dresden. We have a contract with them for middle school and, now, high school students," Shagoury said. "Is that all going to be severed?"

Shagoury said he strongly believes the proposal for reorganizing the school system should be a separate bill, not buried in the state budget.

Treat said she agreed that such a major proposal should be presented to the Legislature in a separate piece of legislation that would include a public hearing and review, not tucked into a massive budget document.

"The governor has come forward with one approach," Treat said. "It deserves review and serious consideration, but is only one of several options the Legislature can and will be looking at.

The governor's plan was put together without consulting the Legislature, and with minimal involvement from local school boards and others who will be affected by it."

Austin said other options for cutting costs would be to have the state directly involved in certain aspects of school operations, such as joint purchasing of school materials or the consolidation of accounting services.

But school board members say even that presents difficulties.

"If they combine us with all of Kennebec County, how do you figure out which town pays what?" Austin said. "You're likely to have winners and losers. There's a whole bunch of questions like that that we haven't heard anybody address yet."

Mechele Cooper -- 623-3811, Ext. 408

mcooper@centralmaine.com