The communities of Perham, Wade and Washburn may be asked to decide if they want to continue sending their students to Washburn High School or close the school in an effort to control high taxes.
The board of directors for Maine School Administrative District 45, the three town’s school district, has authorized forming a high school closure exploratory committee to analyze the option of closing Washburn High School, amid increasing school expenses and school taxes, and smaller enrollment.
The question of whether to consider closing the high school, which this year has 96 students, has “been stewing for awhile,” said MSAD 45 board chair Ryan Rackliffe.
“The mill rate is quite high in Washburn,” he added. “We were asked by some of the folks in town to form a committee to explore all the options.”
Closing the high school “would be devastating to our towns, but as a board we need to make sure we leave no stone unturned when it comes to spending taxpayers money while also making sure we are doing what is best for our students,” Rackliffe said.
“The district’s at a point where we’ve been operating on the same budget for many years. We’re operating our district bare bones. It’s to a point where we’ve cut, cut, cut. There’s very few options left without increasing our budget.”
The board approved the exploratory committee at a meeting May 9, and Rackliffe said the committee will get started by forming with members from the board, school and communities, and setting a timeline for how they plan to proceed.
Rackliffe noted that if the committee recommends closing the high school and the board approves it, the voters of the three towns would still have to approve any school closure in a referendum. The board also does not intend to consider any proposal to close the high school for the 2017-2018 school, he said.
“At the end of the day, this will be a town decision, not the school board’s,” Rackliffe said.
In the near future, voters in the three towns will be asked to weigh in on a budget proposal for the next school year.
As currently proposed, the 2017-2018 budget is at $4.39 million, representing an increase to local taxpayers of $49,216.
No date has yet been set for the budget referendum. The board will be voting on whether to approve the proposed budget to send to voters at a June 13 meeting.
