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No state penalty for failing to get merger partner

By Scott Monroe smonroe@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

PITTSFIELD -- Local school officials learned Thursday they would not be slammed with a $182,000 state penalty.

At a meeting with School Administrative District 53 officials, State Education Commissioner Susan Gendron assured the officials that they would avoid the hefty penalty, according to school Superintendent Michael Gallagher.

However, it won't happen as SAD 53 officials had proposed. Gendron told them that she couldn't grant their request to avoid the penalty under the so-called "doughnut hole" provision of state law, according to Gallagher, but rather would absolve the district after pending legislation at the State House is approved.

That's expected to happen in the next week or so, he said.

"It's not what we originally had planned to have happen," Gallagher said, "but it resolves our issue and we won't be subject to the penalty, and that's of course good news."

Even so, that good news is tempered by the harsh reality that SAD 53 still faces a 2010-11 budget shortfall that would require increasing taxes 9.2 percent districtwide. That's after the board voted last week to close the Burnham Village School as part of $316,000 in cuts.

The SAD 53 Board of Directors is aiming to slash an additional $172,000 in expenses, which would take the tax increase down to 4 percent districtwide.

Board members will discuss the budget at their next meeting, at 7 p.m. April 5 at Warsaw Middle School.

SAD 53 has faced the penalty -- a reduction in state aid -- because it has not merged with another school district, as required by Maine's consolidation law; but that failure has not been SAD 53's fault, school officials say, because they have exhausted all their options.

Voters in Madison-based SAD 59 rejected a merger plan with SAD 53 on June 10, 2008, although SAD 53 voters approved it. Since then, other merger ideas haven't gone anywhere and other nearby school systems have found other partners.

Lawmakers last year passed legislation giving "orphaned" school systems such as SAD 53 a one-year extension, but that ran out at the end of January. Recently, SAD 53 had proposed that it file for a "doughnut hole" plan, arguing that it meets the section of state law of performing due diligence and being "unable to meet the enrollment goal (of 2,500 students) because of decisions of geographically proximate school administrative units to participate in a different regional unit."

At Thursday's meeting, Gendron said she "does not currently have the jurisdiction to do that," Gallagher said. The education commissioner instead pointed to L.D. 570, "An Act To Improve the Laws Governing the Consolidation of School Administrative Units," which was approved by the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee last week and will be voted on by the House and Senate as soon as next week, Gallagher said.

Under the bill, Gendron would receive wider discretion enabling her to designate SAD 53 as a "conforming district," Gallagher said, meaning the district would be considered "isolated and unable to find another consolidation partner."

Scott Monroe -- 861-9253

smonroe@centralmaine.com