SALEM – More than 50 residents turned out and threw their support behind keeping a high school program in MSAD 58 at Thursday evening’s board meeting, during which board members discussed the costs associated with tuitioning students to other districts.
The school board is exploring the tuition option alongside others, including three possible facility realignments. An ongoing discussion for more than two years, the process was delayed several months following the departure of Eustis from MSAD 58 and now takes place as some Kingfield residents and selectmen consider a similar move.
Thursday, Superintendent Brenda Stevens and other MSAD 58 administrators presented data on tuition option, indicating that they believed that tuitioning out either some or all of the high school class to surrounding districts would cost MSAD 58 more than it would save, due to the loss of incoming tuitioned students from towns like Carrabassett Valley and Eustis, as well as the Unorganized Territory. Averaged over the last four years, each UT student brought $13,142 in state funding into the district, adding together the state-determined tuition, transportation and special education funding. The actual cost per pupil, averaged over those same four years, was estimated at $11,398.
“We will lose a significant revenue stream,” Stevens said of the option to tuition out high school students.
Some directors balked at the administration’s estimates of the savings that would be garnered through closing down the high school program, as well as the costs of tuitioning out students to surrounding districts. An estimation prepared by the MSAD 58 administrators, which set the cost of student tuition at $10,000 to create the example, indicated that there would a roughly $98,000 savings from the $9.07 million 2013-14 budget. That number incorporates the MSAD 58 savings set against the cost of tutitioning students to surrounding districts, and was dwarfed by the $980,000 lost in revenue due to incoming tuitioned students.
Directors questioned the $10,000 rate in the estimate, as well as the $620,000 set aside for special education services for the outgoing students. Some directors also expressed a desire to parse through the budget line by line to better understand what savings would be available if the high school program were to be closed down.
“I don’t want you to just give me a number,” Director Rupert Pratt of Strong said. “I want you to give me an explanation.”
Directors agreed to spend some time at their regularly scheduled board meeting on Oct. 10 at Strong Elementary School, as well as another special meeting on Oct. 17 at the high school, breaking down the budget line by line. In addition to settling the financial background of the tuition option, Stevens noted that the exercise would prove useful come budget time.
Stevens and several directors, including some who pushed to review the budget line by line, expressed the opinion that the tuition option was likely nonviable, due to the lack of net savings. Three other options, all of them closing one or more schools in the district and shifting the K-12 grades amidst the one, two or three remaining facilities have been tentatively identified as saving relatively small amounts of money.
Director Marc Edwards of Strong addressed this, noting that the board would and should seek efficiencies within the budget, suggesting that a dramatic cost cutting option did not exist.
“There’s not a whole lot that we can do that’s going to have an impact on our taxes,” Edwards said, noting that four years of expenditure decreases had still yielded a mil rate increase in the towns.
Board Chair Diane Thomas, responding to a statement from the public, indicated that it was the board’s responsibility to spend some time fully investigating the options.
“This has been kicking around this district for so long,” Thomas said. “It’s our job to [consider] it, get it out of the way and move on.”
Several members of the public addressed the board and expressed a desire to keep K-12 grades in-district. The board was also presented with a list of 301 signatures of residents indicating their support for that option, and the audience generally applauded each speaker.
In addition to the Oct. 17 meeting, additional meetings have been scheduled for Nov. 21 and Dec. 19, dedicated to facility- and district-related studies.
I appreciate all the time and effort being spent to balance our need to educate with what we can afford to spend. After it’s all said and done its doubtful anyone will walk away getting everything they want. Trusting the board to be wise and fair and our teachers to continue to be amazing making the most out of the resources they are given. We are fortunate to have such great people in our little neck of the woods.
Last night a board member from Phillips “scoffed” at our 301 signatures on our petition to educate kids here K-12 in SAD 58. The petition only had been out there for 5 days. Last spring 258 people voted in the SAD 58 budget referendum. 301 signatures seems pretty significant to me.
I will happily sign that petition. Just tell me where