Staff Writer
A referendum was soundly defeated by voters Jan. 20 that – if approved – would have consolidated SAD 42 (Mars Hill and Blaine), SAD 45 (Washburn, Wade and Perham), the Bridgewater School Department and the Easton School Department into one regional school unit (RSU). In SAD 42 towns, the measure was defeated 228-28. Individual community votes are as follows:
• Mars Hill (20 – Yes, 151 – No).
• Blaine (8 – Yes, 77 – No).
In SAD 45, the plan was rejected 152-38. Community votes were:
• Washburn (26 – Yes, 84 – No).
• Wade (2 – Yes, 15 – No).
• Perham (10 – Yes, 53 – No).
Residents in Easton defeated the referendum question by a vote of 249-7, while in Bridgewater, the plan was rejected 52-6.
In total, the school consolidation referendum was defeated 681-79.
“[The results tell me] that this particular plan – for certain – did not work for them … that there were things in the plan that just did not make them want to give up their local schools and the control and move into this unit,” said Easton Superintendent Frank Keenan. “There were clearly some potential savings over time within district level administration, but there would not have been any over the first year or two.
“Over time, there would be savings in terms of administrative costs, but that was more than lost in the leveling-up costs that would be in the salaries of the teachers and the hourly wage personnel within the districts,” he said. “There was about $780,000 of leveling-up costs identified by the committees if the current staff and structure was in place as they went down the road. I think that was a big part why the referendum was defeated.”
As a result of the cost-sharing formula, Keenan said Easton would have been responsible for 57.4 percent of all costs moving forward throughout the new RSU above Essential Programs and Services (EPS).
“I’m sure that had a huge impact on the vote in Easton,” said Keenan. “It’s clear that this plan did not work for them.”
Interestingly, more residents voted against the measure in Easton than any of the other communities had combined.
“It was a wonderful turnout for a day where there wasn’t an election going on,” said Keenan. “Plus you had the distractions of the Inauguration that day to keep people away, but it was an awesome turnout for Easton. They clearly found it was important to them and they voted in large numbers.”
For now, Keenan said, the Regional Planning Committee (RPC) will wait and see what happens next in Augusta.
“Now that all of the districts – all over the state – have voted, I am sure that there is going to be some direction coming from the Department of Education, and I am sure there is going to be some things done in the Legislature,” he said. “Looking at the votes today, of the 18 that voted Jan. 27, 14 of the districts failed. Of the four where some consolidation was approved, there was only one district where all of the communities voted in support of the measure.
“At this point, looking at it overall, there are more communities that have voted it down than have supported it statewide,” said Keenan. “I don’t know what the direction will be, but I’m sure people will be given some direction for people to look at and decide whether they want to continue and pursue other partners, continue to pursue other plans with the same partners, maybe a different structure, or simply to just stand alone and take the penalty.”
Despite the threat of a $42,000 per year penalty looming for Easton, Keenan said the community would “not vote for a plan that they see as a bad plan in the long term to save $42,000 a year.”
“I think what they would do is, if they choose not to consolidate, we will be working as hard as we can to find all the savings we can within our district to help mitigate the loss of that revenue,” he said. “We also would be looking to work with maybe some of the people we just had consolidation talks with to look at sharing resources to try to save money.
“The penalty is one that we don’t want to have,” said Keenan, “but at the same time, they’re not going to vote for a plan that doesn’t make sense to them to avoid it. We’ve gone through the process and the timeline has run out, so we’ll have to see what the state suggests we do next.”
