HALLOWELL -- As one of the state's first voter-approved, consolidating school districts approaches its start date, planners are wondering how they can make progress before a school board with legal authority comes on line.

Fifteen school committee members from four different boards met Wednesday night to ponder the next steps as their five towns' schools merge into one district.

Board members from Dresden, Farmingdale, Hallowell, Monmouth and Richmond debated the role of a team charged with transitioning into the new administrative structure.

They set Nov. 4 as the date when voters will elect a 12-member school board to oversee the five-town district. The merger takes effect July 1, 2009.

The vote to schedule the election illustrates the difficulties the merging district could encounter before a school board assumes authority. Each of the four school boards in the room took separate votes to set the date.

"We'd like to get going, but we don't have the authority," said Donald Siviski, superintendent of School Administrative District 16, which serves Farmingdale and Hallowell.

Voters in the five towns whose schools are consolidating approved the merger plan in June, becoming the second consolidating district in Maine to win voter approval.

The period between June and November, however, is proving difficult for the emerging school unit. A transition team made up largely of those who crafted the merger plan is meeting, but questions remain over its scope of work.

"It's kind of a forerunner as to what business might be conducted as the RSU," Richmond planning committee member O'Neil LaPlante said, referring to the regional school unit structure. "We could establish a structure for working, if nothing else."

Monmouth school committee member Doug Beck urged transition team members not to overstep their boundaries.

"My concern is that transition team is going to get too far ahead of itself," he said.

"I think that the transition team, we're going to have to police ourselves," Richmond superintendent Martha Witham said.

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, Ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com