REORGANIZATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

Mount Desert Island High School Library

Wednesday, 8 August 2007

DRAFT Minutes

Attendance: Facilitator, Bill Ferm; Chair, Gail Marshall; Vice-Chair, Brian Hubbell;

Bar Harbor: Paul Murphy, Bob Garland; Cranberry Isles: Barbara Meyers;

Frenchboro: Bob Roxby; Mt. Desert: Jeff Smith; Southwest Harbor: Skip Strong, Amy Young, Anne Napier; Swan's Island: Tammy Tripler, George Anderson;

Tremont: Phil Worden; Lamoine: Faith Perkins, Kathleen Rybarz

Others in attendance:  Kristin Hutchins, Kelley Sanborn, Norm Hill, Rick Barter, Mr. and Mrs. George Peckham, Patrick Smallidge, Brian Reilly, Rob Liebow,

Nancy Thurlow, Selena Dunbar

Commencement of Meeting and Review of Agenda

Gail Marshall called the meeting to order at 7:07 p.m. and reviewed the topics on the agenda for this meeting.

Review and Approval of Minutes from August 2^nd

MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Amy Young, and unanimously voted to approve the minutes of August 2, 2007 with the following revisions:

Change the wording from “co-chair” to “vice-chair”.

There will be an attempt to record and podcast from the Union 98 web site the meetings beginning with this meeting.

Reports

Trenton

Brian Hubbell reported that in an informal discussion with Trenton, they said they were sorry they could not attend last week’s meeting.  They invited Mr. Hubbell to attend the Trenton board meeting on Tuesday.  Mr. Hubbell will attend if the committee agrees he should.  Trenton is very open to participation with us.

Lamoine

Faith Perkins stated that Lamoine held their meeting on Monday and are keeping their options open. There is not enough financial data available for them to make any decisions at this point.

Department of Education Response to Finances

Rob Liebow reported that the Department of Education did respond to his requests for spreadsheets that included the funding formula from the private and special act.  He presented the information and discussed the implications for each town.

Sub-Committee on Availability of Funds for Legal Costs

Brian reported that a newspaper article quoted the Commissioner as saying that there would be $10,000 available for school units to cover facilitation and legal fees. Further investigation regarding this amount and it’s disbursement is ongoing.

Presentation and Discussion of Regional School Models

Rob Liebow gave a PowerPoint presentation showing variations of RSU models.  Bill Ferm asked everyone in the room to give their opinion of which model they were inclined to support at this point.  Many responses from RPC members were in favor of opting out, but others suggested that was not an option for the RPC.  It is only and option for voters.  Many others were in favor of option #4, which is closely related to the way the school system is currently organized.  One was in favor of considering restructuring the financing so that K-12 resources would be more extensively drawn from towns with greater valuation and distributed to towns with lower property valuations.  Outer island members felt they did not have enough financial information to support any of the options that were presented. 

Next Meeting Date

Wednesday, August 22 at 7:00 p.m. in the MDIHS Library

Future Agenda Items

Presentation and discussion of model #4 with variations based upon participation.

Adjournment

MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Phil Worden, and unanimously voted to adjourn the meeting at 9:04 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Selena Dunbar

Recording Secretary