MSAD 58 board ends consideration of tuition proposal

SALEM – The MSAD 58 school board moved to take a proposal to tuition high school students outside of the district off the table Thursday evening, drawing applause from those attending the meeting.

The unanimously-supported motion came after approximately two hours of reviewing the district’s budget, modified to reflect the removal of high school-related expenses and the increased costs associated with tuition and transportation. The motion did not come as a significant surprise; most directors on the MSAD 58 board had expressed doubts regarding the proposal at previous meetings. However at a meeting on Sept. 26, some directors requested a chance to go through the budget line-by-line in order to review possible savings and get an accurate as estimate as possible.

The budget reviewed Thursday evening was based off the current, 2013-14 fiscal year budget, with 9-12 expenses removed. Directors asked administrators, for the purposes of the exercise, to cut high school portions of staff splitting their time between two schools out of the budget, generating approximately $846,000 in savings in total. Applied against that were some additional transportation costs, directors used $50,000 as a placeholder, as well as the cost of tuition. Here, directors accepted an $8,000 figure as the tuition cost for all 169 high school students living in Avon, Kingfield, Strong and Phillips, along with an additional $12,000 for each of those students receiving special education services, roughly 30.

The most significant impact on the budget if students were to be tuitioned outside of the district would be the loss of approximately $980,000 in revenue garnered through incoming tuitioned high school students, from towns like Carrabassett Valley and Eustis, the Unorganized Territory and state agency clients placed in the district. Applying lost revenue against the savings results in the K-8 district costing more than $100,000 when compared to the current configuration.

While directors debated some inclusions and exclusions in the budget, such as whether one or two computer support personnel would be needed and if a half-time superintendent could oversee the K-8 district, all agreed that the proposal did not save money.

“It’s still an expense and still, in my opinion, shortsighted,” Director David Masterman of Avon said.

“We need to look at a different option,” Director Dan Worcester of Phillips agreed, after thanking Business Manager Luci Milewski for running the exercise for the board.

The board unanimously supported a motion to take the grades 9-12 tuition option “off the table,” leading to applause from those attending the meeting.

The board than turned to which options it would consider next, with three facility realignment plans developed by the administration drawing immediate discussion. Of these, the board decided to focus initially on a proposal to keep a school open in Strong, Kingfield and Phillips. One of these would provide space for the high school students, while the others would be K-8 schools. In the original proposal, Strong was listed as the most likely high school candidate, due to its large gym, but the board did not limit itself to any particular configuration.

Much like the discussion over tuitioning students outside of the district, the board will consider the three-school proposal’s viability at a board meeting scheduled expressly for that purpose on Nov. 21. Prior to that meeting, the building committee will meet and consider different options for three-school proposals and do some preparatory research. In supporting consideration of the three-school option over two- and one-school options, directors cited the repeated instances of MSAD 58 residents showing support for keeping schools in the towns.

“We heard loud and clear that having a school in each town is important,” Director Ann Schwink of Strong said.

During the public comment period, residents thanked the directors for voting against the tuition proposal.