REORGANIZATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING
Mount Desert Island High School Library
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
DRAFT Minutes
Attendance: Facilitator, Bill Ferm; Chair, Gail Marshall; Vice-Chair, Brian Hubbell; Bar Harbor: Bob Garland; Mt. Desert: Laurel Robbins, Jeff Smith; Southwest Harbor: Amy Young, Anne Napier, Skip Strong; Tremont: Amy Murphy, Phil Worden, Scott Grierson; Lamoine: Kathleen Rybarz; Trenton: Fred Ehrlenbach, Judy Sproule
Others in attendance: Rob Liebow, Nancy Thurlow, Selena Dunbar, Rick Barter, George Peckham, Mia Brown,
Brian Reilly, Rick Mooers, Becky Buyers-Basso
Commencement of Meeting and Review of Agenda
Gail Marshall called the meeting to order at 7:02 p.m. and reviewed the topics on this meeting’s agenda.
Review and Approval of Minutes from September 19th
MOVED by Laurel Robbins, seconded by Jeff Smith, and unanimously voted to approve the minutes of
19 September 2007, as presented.
Report from Efficiencies Committee
Gail Marshall, Laurel Robbins, Rob Liebow, and Nancy Thurlow met to look at ways to create efficiencies with respect to transportation, special education, plant and maintenance, and administrative costs. They were also trying to decide if there were any other areas that should be looked into. Gail Marshall asked the committee what areas, if any, they would you like to see people dig into in a more detailed way. The smaller group did not get into special education very deeply because Kelley Sanborn was not with them.
Currently, Union 98 employs a psychological examiner and contracts for occupational therapy and physical therapy because these positions are easier to contract than to employ. The way the state is approaching special education and cuts will almost guarantee a rise in the quotient of contentious and expensive litigation regarding special education problems. The committee is very concerned that this will raise the price of special education services.
Plant and maintenance services could be covered by hiring one person at a higher rate of pay to cover all schools in the RSU, but would this actually save money? This person may end up doing more managing than maintenance. Will there need to be supervisors to keep the work force moving in individual schools?
Transportation services could change by having separate buses for the high school. Rob Liebow said there could be separate buses, but there would be less chance of getting someone to come in for an hour and a half for the morning run and then an hour and a half in the afternoon. It would be very hard to find someone to do this. We may be able to combine with adjacent towns if the schools were close enough but it wouldn’t create dramatic savings. All students K-12 could ride the same bus, but this would present other problems. Right now we have age appropriate kids riding the bus together. No matter what is done, there is a cost to it.
Gail Marshall asked if anyone had an area that they wanted the sub-committee to explore deeper. The state says you have to show how you plan to address savings in these certain areas without hurting the educational program. It’s been clear to us, right from the beginning that we’re not going to be able to show these cuts. We are allowed to say in our plan that we are not going to show the state those cuts. There is no penalty for that. The state will take $36 million dollars from those schools that say this. And they plan to take it out of those lines from those people who are receiving it from the state. There is no state money to withdraw this from.
Brian Hubbell said that he felt we shouldn’t spend very much time worrying and trying to resolve issues that don’t benefit our schools just because the law says we should. Amy Young agreed.
Gail Marshall asked if the sub-committee should meet again. The general consensus is that they should not, at this time.
Options for Trenton and Lamoine
Gail Marshall feels that Trenton and Lamoine have no good options. If they have made up their mind what they intend to do, we would like to know, but we don’t see how they could with the information they have.
Plans are due to the state by December 1 and there is a lot of work to do before then. Even the state has acknowledged that all plans are not going to be complete. Should we go ahead and try to build a plan that will enable us to have the space and flexibility to include Trenton and Lamoine if it makes sense for them.
We need to decide how we actually want to get started building the plan.
Laurel Robbins asked if there was a way to leave the plan open. She liked the idea of giving Trenton and Lamoine the flexibility of being able to join without having to make that decision right now.
Skip Strong asked what the possibility of starting with two plans would be. Plan A including Trenton and Lamoine and Plan B without them.
Judy Sproule said that by December 1 Trenton would have a better idea of where they are headed.
Gail Marshall said the plan itself looks simple but gathering the documentation will take time.
Phil Worden agreed that Trenton and Lamoine are in a difficult position and it’s not their fault. We are going to have to have a serious discussion about the funding formula.
Fred Ehrlenbach asked what would happen if the plan includes Trenton and Lamoine and the towns don’t approve the vote?
Rob Liebow said that the plan has to pass with a majority of the voters in the RSU. If it fails in one town, but every other town passes it, you are going to be in the RSU, or become a “donut hole”.
Mr. Ehrlenbach said that it is up to the voters of the towns but the school boards make the recommendation to the towns.
Kathleen Rybarz said the reasons Lamoine would consider going with Union 98 is that MDIHS is highly ranked and offers many opportunities for students. Currently, 50% of Lamoine’s students attend MDIHS so Lamoine and Union 98 are already working together. However, the other group that they are considering is just forming, so that is exciting too. They are hoping the state will address the funding issues for them. They have a low debt ration and efficient per pupil cost right now. Off the record, they are considering remaining Union 92 but contracting with MDIHS. The state says this is not an option for them, but they think they can do it.
Skip Strong asked if there would have to be different contracts for MDIHS and EHS?
Kathleen Rybarz said they will still have school choice, but they will have to have a contract with everyone.
Rob Liebow said we would have to agree to take all students, even if they decide not to come here.
Report from Building the Plan Workshop
Gail Marshall said that the law has many gaps in it. Drummond, Woodsum, and MacMahon laid out a comprehensive template for how to build a plan. We will rely heavily on the documents that they prepared as we go about laying out our plan.
There are several ways articulated by the law that you can have people represented on the RSU board.
Sub-district representation – take the region and divide it irrespective of town boundaries. At large – everybody runs in the whole district and everybody has to have enough votes to be on the board. Any other method as long as you adhere to one-person one-vote.
Rob Liebow wanted to note that every SAU has to submit a plan. If our islands decide to be exempt we will have to file an alternate plan for each island in addition to our other plans.
Rob Liebow presented a voted weight spreadsheet showing how the votes would be distributed. The law says that no one director may have more than 2% additional voting power than the director would have if all the votes were split up equally among all directors. There is nothing about someone having 2% less; you just can’t have 2% more. We need to work on this to keep the number of board of directors from becoming unwieldy.
Gail Marshall said that it would make sense to start with the least populated towns then work our way up to determine the number of board of directors from each town.
Brian Hubbell suggested electing local board members first and then figure out how to form the RSU board of directors from those members.
Jeff Smith asked what powers and authorities the RSU would have if there is a local board in place and each board remains independent that deals with hiring, firing, etc.
Gail Marshall said that Drummond, Woodsum, and MacMahon provided a sheet that lists areas that we need to articulate how we want power to be devolved to local school boards. Right now we have a high school board and a Union board. Are we going to have the same boards?
Brian Hubbell said for reasons of efficiency the RSU board should cover the high school depending on what happens with the Private and Special Law.
Rob Liebow handed out the list from Drummond, Woodsum, and MacMahon.
Gail Marshall said we need to look carefully at these items and determine how they will work for us. She reviewed the items, A-M, with the committee. We need to figure out for each of these items who we want to delegate the powers and authorities to - the local boards or the RSU board.
Jeff Smith asked who would own the school buildings.
Brian Hubbell believes that it has been our intention the whole way through this process that the K-8 buildings remain with the municipalities. He does not believe there is any requirement to transfer them to the RSU.
Kathleen Rybarz asked if K-8 was all that was being discussed right now.
Gail Marshall said yes.
Phil Worden asked if, at this point, what we are deciding is whether the RSU board will be handling these items or the local town boards will be handling them, with respect to just K-8.
Scott Grierson asked if you were interested in local control, wouldn’t you give all powers back to the local boards?
Gail
Skip Strong asked if we were under a common contract would it be administered locally?
Gail Marshall said yes, but Mr. Liebow thinks that this is one point where the law contradicts itself.
He thinks the law says all employees become employees of the RSU.
Because the law also says you can set up local committee that manages the K-8 school and can articulate the powers that the local committee has “as long as it is not in conflict with other provisions of this law”. We had them remove this at the last minute. We were explicitly clear as to why we were removing that. We wanted to make it clear that we were going to totally maintain local control of our schools – hiring, firing, ownership of buildings.
Rob Liebow said that would mean that seniority would have to be school-wide and not district-wide and transfer of teachers from one school, which is a real fear, to another would be prevented. He thinks there are times it would be advantageous to have that ability as long as it is used appropriately. It could be a win-win situation for the kids. In the RSU you could just transfer from one school to the other. Seniority will be a big issue in this regard.
Brian Hubbell observed that these are critical in terms of the law because where they seem to be in conflict with the law; this is where we justify the powers. We have to be careful not to miss anything.
Gail Marshall said that we need to determine how we’re going to bargain as separate boards, how we’re going to come together for one contract.
Phil Worden asked how much flexibility is going to be built into this plan. When we decide what is going to be delegated to the school board, is it going to be inflexible, or can we grow and learn over time and change as we need to?
Gail Marshall said to look at M on the sheet – “Through the municipal officers, the local school committee may submit to the voters of the municipality an article for the voters of the municipality to determine whether the local school committee should be eliminated or an article to curtail or eliminate one or more of its powers and duties.”
Brian Hubbell thinks it will be relatively simple to curtail responsibilities, but it will be proportionately more difficult to get them back.
Scott Grierson stated that these are all powers that local school boards have now. Let’s keep it that way and then change later if needed.
Gail Marshall said that when we present the plan it has to articulate in everything in exquisite detail. We have to think of our school district as a corporation. This corporation will be dissolved and a new one will be formed. We need to make sure that each of our school units have all the kinds of insurance that we need and all the same kinds of coverage they currently have. Scholarships are the same thing.
Rob Liebow said the committee needs to remember that it is hard enough to find people to handle the finances and all the things we need to do to keep our Union running smoothly the way it is. Policies, records, seniority lists, etc. will all have to be done separately and kept track of through the central office. When you look at adding two additional towns it gets even harder.
Brian Hubbell would be interested in hearing the administration’s recommendation, strictly from an administrator’s point of view, what powers they would like to have given to local boards.
Mr. Liebow said that we already have union-wide curriculum services and the common contract that are working well. Budgets should stay K-8 and budget development, but having a lot of these powers go to the local boards get daunting.
Jeff Smith said the curriculum and contract are a good start, but the special ed director is already stretched. This is going to cost us money in terms of the central office. We are never going to meet our 5% cut administratively.
Nancy Thurlow said that we have to have one set of books for the RSU. We will no longer get separate subsidy checks. Even though you may vote on your K-8 budgets separately, they will roll into the RSU budget.
Mr. Liebow said to remember that each K-8 and the high school will each have their own referendum and this can spin out of control fast.
Laurel Robbins asked about letter I – “They shall submit proposals for school renovations and school construction projects to the regional school unit for approval in accordance with applicable law. They shall consult with the regional school unit board regarding school construction projects and renovation projects for their schools.” Does this mean that a local school can’t do renovations without the RSU’s approval?
Mr. Liebow said this assumes that the buildings are transferred to the RSU. He thinks the RSU has control even if the town retains control of the building. For example, the building in Mt. Desert could be leased from the town for $1 for the RSU’s purposes. In this case, the RSU board would fix the building.
Gail Marshall said we can keep local ownership and we will use Dick Spencer’s help in wording it this way.
Letter L deals with policies and Gail Marshall strongly encourages uniformity in this regard. We are asking local boards that if they want to change a policy to justify their reasoning. We are not saying it could not be changed, just that they need to prove why the change was necessary.
Judy Sproule said the plan must limit the ability of the RSU to take away from local school boards because supposedly when you submit your plan it is set in stone. Currently there is no provision for getting out of the RSU.
Mia Brown asked if the town decided to give up something, could they get it back? And what would the mechanism be for this? Does the RSU want that responsibility? What if the town doesn’t want the responsibility?
Gail Marshall asked if we want to word the plan to say, “Can we increase, curtail, or eliminate power?” And the other question would be, “Does the RSU want it?”
Mia - In I, if one building is in dire need of work, is the burden for that building then placed on the RSU?
Gail Marshall said no. The burden would fall to the local board about the work and the funding for it.
Mia Brown asked how the lease of the building would work in regard to maintenance issues.
Brian Hubbell said that the RSU owns all of the duties that aren’t specifically assigned to the local boards. If any local responsibilities are declined he doesn’t think there is any way out of giving them to the RSU.
Gail Marshall said that this raises a good question about how to get power back.
Bob Garland asked that once the RSU is established, would communication from the state is going to funnel through the RSU?
Rob Liebow said it is almost guaranteed.
Nancy Thurlow said yes because the local school departments won’t exist. Subsidy will be one check.
Gail Marshall said that local boards would have the authority that the voters have given to them in creation of the plan. RSU comes into existence at the same time the local boards do. We need to articulate how it is that the RSU could walk in or not walk in and make changes unilaterally.
Phil Worden said that the plan is like the constitution of the RSU and if the constitution of the RSU says that there are going to be local boards with X, Y and Z powers then you can’t change that without amending the constitution which leaves out the flexibility to expand over time.
We need to determine what the mechanism is for making change. And what triggers it. Whether it is 2/3 vote, or majority, or some other mechanism.
The important thing to note is that municipalities really don’t exist anymore in relation to the RSU. In the specific plan, the municipalities will vote once whether to join the RSU so we have to be very careful about this.
George Peckham said that concerning I, isn’t the renovation of the high school gym a good example of loss of control? If you lost the Trustees who are responsible for the condition of this campus they would have had to go to someone else, but they didn’t have to go to anybody to do it.
Gail Marshall said that is a good point. We need to bring up the issue of the Trustees. It does raise the issue and we need to figure out what we want I to say.
Phil Worden said that in our local area, applying to the state for financing is not necessary or important.
Brian Hubbell suggested we decide how we are going to move ahead with this. He would like to see a proposal from the administration’s interest and also perhaps someone with a legal frame of mind to draft a proposal that reflects our understanding of how we perceive this. This would be the precursor to going to Dick Spencer. There are parts we don’t feel apply and that we want to change. If we can all agree on a draft we could then take it to Dick Spencer.
Jeff Smith would like to take this to the town and get their input, then bring it back to the next meeting.
This would give a chance to think about it a little more. He felt that this should be the only item on the next agenda.
Gail Marshall asked people to look at section 5 which deals with the disposition of real property. The detail that we are going to have to project is going to have to be all laid out. This will require an enormous amount of data gathered by our administration.
Rob Liebow asked the committee to remember that Nancy Thurlow is going to be dealing with budgets and many other tasks. He needs to protect his employees from being required to do too much. This could crush any administration under its own weight of having to do this in time for referendums.
Gail Marshall said that the administration currently has to spend too much time on consolidation and not enough on school administration.
Amy Young said that this whole process is detrimental to the education of our students. It is injurious to our kids.
Jeff Smith reminded everyone that the reorganization has nothing to do with education.
Mia Brown said that the state is constantly moving deadlines. Every district is going through this same situation so there has got to be pressure from other districts that can’t get this done in the time the state is requesting.
Gail Marshall suggested we invite our representatives, Ted Kauffman and Dennis Damon to come to some of these meetings so they can see what we are grappling with.
Bob Garland asked if it would be advantageous to ask Ted and Hannah to introduce legislation at the next session that requires legislators to attend these RPC sessions? If it passes and they attend, it will give them a good idea of what we’re dealing with.
Laurel Robbins asked if there was a slower track that we can go on? It’s not right for Mr. Liebow to be taken away from educational issues to deal with consolidation issues.
Jeff Smith asked what happened if we didn’t file the plan by the deadline.
Gail Marshall said that we could just say our plan is still in process.
Jeff Smith said we shouldn’t infringe on the educational benefit to our kids while we are doing this. We should tell the state we are doing the best we can.
Rob Liebow said that theoretically, the last chance to complete a plan is next November or you start paying penalties, unless something changes.
Skip Strong asked if the only penalties we would face are the loss of 50% special education.
Rob Liebow said the commissioner told him there is a lot of push to take all the special education money away because that is how they may solve some of their funding ups and downs to fund the transition.
Skip Strong said that if we don’t get any of the special education money he would walk away from this. There would be no need to continue.
Mr. Peckham asked if we could convince the legislature or the Department of Education that Mount Desert and Deer Isle are islands?
Judy Sproule asked if this group had ever thought about privatizing the schools. Scott Grierson said that the Board of Selectmen in Tremont mentioned that to Mr. Liebow and the selectmen were very interested in that option.
Gail Marshall said this was mentioned in January. There has been talk of a plan for it, but a plan has never gotten off the ground. Privatizing would be a huge issue for teachers and pensions.
Amy Young said she spoke with a senior teacher at Pemetic about privatization and she said not to consider teachers as being opposed to this because they currently don’t get to contribute to social security. They may not be against this option.
Phil Worden said private schools really aren’t in the cards for us. We really shouldn’t go down that route.
Next Meeting Date
Wednesday, October 17 at 7:00 p.m. in the MDIHS Library
Future Agenda Items
Gail Marshall suggested the committee try to come up with a list of documents. Mr. Liebow thinks it’s a good idea, as Jeff Smith suggested, that towns come back with their input before we start forming the plan.
Brian Hubbell thinks the goal of the next meeting is to get something together that we can give to Dick Spencer.
Gail Marshall and Brian Hubbell will contact legislators to invite them to the next meeting.
Adjournment
MOVED by Laurel Robbins, seconded by Skip Strong, and unanimously voted to adjourn the meeting at 9:02 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Selena Dunbar, Recording Secretary