Reorganization Planning Committee Public Forum
14 November 2007
DRAFT Minutes
Present: Facilitator Bill Ferm, Chair Gail Marshall, Vice-Chair Brian Hubbell
Bar Harbor: Paul Murphy, Bob Garland; Mount Desert: Laurel Robbins, Jeff Smith; Southwest Harbor: Amy Young, Skip Strong, Anne Napier; Tremont: Amy Murphy,
Phil Worden; Cranberry Isles: Ted Spurling, Kate Chaplin, Barbara Meyers
Others: Senator Dennis Damon, Senate Majority Leader Hannah Pingree,
State Representative Ted Koffman, Rob Liebow, Nancy Thurlow, Joanne Harriman,
Kelley Sanborn, Union 98 administrators, members of the community
Commencement of Meeting
Gail Marshall called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m. in the MDIHS auditorium.
Reorganization Planning Committee members introduced themselves to the public and Facilitator Bill Ferm started the meeting.
Rob Liebow provided a Power Point presentation to the public with an overview of the law and the requirements of a Reorganization Plan.
Will School Union 98 and surrounding towns consolidate, or not? Mr. Liebow reviewed the major requirements of the school consolidation law. This plan and all changes it encompasses will not be in effect until after the 2008-2009 school year.
Size and other requirements – RSU’s must be a minimum size of 2,500 students with some exceptions, but in no case may they be formed of less than 1,200 students. Include provisions for high school education for all students.
What about the islands? Offshore islands are specifically exempt from the consolidation process by law. They need to either file an alternative plan to deal with their reorganization as RSU’s or they may contract with the MDI RSU that is formed. Their plan must include a method to access Superintendent’s Office services.
Required Timelines - The next deadline is that each school administrative unit in our district submit a reorganization plan to the Department of Education by December 1. School units that do not consolidate by July 1 will be considered non-conforming and will face penalties.
Requirements of an RSU Plan - Mr. Liebow reviewed the requirements that an RSU Plan must include.
Adjustments to state subsidy – The state is proposing to make the following reductions in state subsidy amounts beginning in 2008-2009:
5% reduction in special education
5% in transportation
5% in operations and maintenance; and
50% reduction in central office costs.
RSU governance and voting power – The RSU will be governed by an elected district board of directors with one representative from each town. One person one vote principle by equal distribution of 100 votes by population size of each town. RPC is allowed to form local school committees and assign the powers and duties as they so choose.
Budgeting – An RSU budget must be approved at a district budget meeting, or meetings. It must be approved by a referendum vote beginning next school year, regardless of whether a school unit agrees to consolidate or not. Budgeting for the K-8 program may be developed, approved and assessed in the towns where each of the K-8 schools operate. The high school portion of the budget will still follow the requirements for approval as detailed in the Private
and Special Act with the addition of a referendum vote in all of the communities that form the CSD. The portion of the RSU budget that is shared by all of the communities must be approved at a district wide budget meeting with a referendum for final approval.
Budget Transparency – The RSU budget must be presented and voted on article by article in an EPS cost centered format.
Cost sharing between towns – The K-8 portion of the RSU budget may be raised and assessed at the local level in each town. The shared district office section of the budget must be shared by the proportional enrollment percentage of each town making up the new RSU. All towns must raise a minimum of 2 mils of valuation to support the education of the children in the towns that form the new RSU, which could be problematic for the Cranberry Isles. There is a proposal before the legislature to change this requirement during the January session.
Transfer of teachers and employees – All teachers and school employees are transferred to the new RSU with neither an increase or decrease in rights and benefits. Collective bargaining agreements will be honored until their expiration. Then a new collective bargaining agreement will be negotiated with the new RSU. The RSU is the only employer.
Superintendents contract will be transferred to the new RSU and the board of directors shall determine the former Superintendent’s duties with the new RSU.
School ownership, assets and debt – Local debt will remain the responsibility of the town that established the obligation unless the new RSU plan includes sharing the debt between all the towns of the new RSU. Towns may retain ownership of local school buildings if this is spelled out in the RPC Plan.
Closing of schools - A plan may not close any schools or displace any teachers during the first year of the RSU. A 2/3 vote of the board of directors of the new RSU will be needed to close an individual school after the first year of the RSU. An individual town may vote to keep the school in question open, but will be solely responsible for the added costs that would have been saved if the school were to have been closed.
School Choice – Students living in communities that had a choice of high schools before the new RSU was formed may still have this option.
Penalties for non-conforming school units - Eligibile for only 50% of the minimum state subsidy (special education reimbursement). Subsidy amounts for system administration will be further cut in half. No longer eligible for any transition adjustments. Less favorable consideration for approval and financial assistance for state funded school construction projects.
How will our schools be structured under this new law? Ultimately depends on the actions of our RPC and the voters. Even though we will be an RSU, the law allows enough flexibility to allow for local governance of our schools as well as local development and approval of the local portion of the RSU district budget. MDIHS funding formula will be allowed to function due to tits creation by a Private and Special Act.
Mr. Liebow thanked the members of the committee and the legislators for the work they have done.
Bill Ferm asked for questions regarding Mr. Liebow’s presentation and asked the committee to give an overview of how they have gotten where they are today. Dennis Damon, Hannah Pingree, and Ted Kauffmann were introduced and thanked for being here.
Gail Marshall reviewed how the committee got to this point. Model 4 is the one we chose to use. K-8 schools can delineate powers and duties to local boards. This is what we want to be able to do. There will still be opportunities for people who come along later to modify our relationship with one another. We want to do this in our own time and when our communities are ready to do this. We want to make sure there is flexibility in the plan to deal with our fundamental principles.
Question from the public - If model 4 were adopted, how is that different from what we do today?
Jeff Smith – Model 4 is to maintain what we have.
Paul Murphy – In terms of budget approval, things will be different. Town meetings will not be the sole place where budgets are approved. They will have to go to referendum. After 3 years we can go back to the way it is now.
Question from the public – With a cost center type of breakdown for the budget, won’t that make voters think they are spending more?
Gail Marshall – Yes and no. Cost center analysis will add to the length of the approval process. When you go to the ballot box it is going to say, do you want to approve this budget, and raise this much over EPS?
Question from the public - What happens if the referendum is not what is approved at an individual town meeting?
Rob Liebow – Wait 10 days, have another school meeting then come back to a town type meeting to establish a new budget, go back to referendum, wait 10 days and keep repeating until it passes. The last budget submitted by July 1 is the one that will be used until the final budget gets passed.
Question from the public - Model 4 is a little different in that voting is going to be done by population. If Bar Harbor has 5 members would it take all of Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, and Tremont to override anything? If voting is going to be done by population, why shouldn’t funding be done the same way?
Gail Marshall – On the RSU we will have weighted votes - 1 person 1 vote principle. That means population will drive our votes, but no differently than what we currently have. We have been together like this for decades now, and we realize that we sink or swim together. By and large, it would be difficult to tell which members come from which town. Rarely do we have votes that are either not unanimous, or only 2-3 voters. There is not a deep division within the boards. This serves our communities well.
Phil Worden – Hope the public understands the issues the committee is facing. The high school is one educational community. Elementary schools are not yet one educational community, but we are making strides toward that. That means when kids get to the high school they arrive at the high school at different levels. Model 4 will preserve the way it is now. Flexibility is very important. We need to continue to make the progress toward broad educational communities so kids arrive at the high school with the same educational experiences.
Paul Murphy – It is important that we build into the RSU entity the ability to evolve. Whether we get to one community in K-8 remains to be seen. True that there is a wide diversity. We are one educational community at the K-8 level in more than just the common teacher contract, shared superintendent, curriculum director, special education director, and the goal to get kids where they should be able to go. There is a long way to go before we are one educational community at the K-8 level. Some think that is good, others think the timeline toward that goal should be short. If we build flexibility in the plan to get there we can do it when our communities are ready.
Gail Marshall – Yes, there are differing opinions from members of the committee, but we are not deeply divided. Paul is right. The way we succeeded in getting to a common teacher contract is because we weren’t forced to do it. We did it because it seemed right for our communities. They accepted and approved it. One special education director, one curriculum director are examples that we have a vision that we didn’t have years ago. It is an evolutionary process.
Phil Worden – There is not a split on committee. These are profound issues we are struggling with, especially at the elementary level. At the high school level there is a serious debate about the funding formula.
Question from the public - What’s the plan if the commissioner rejects our plan?
Gail Marshall – If it is denied for a specific reason that could be fixed with a legislative change and we would seek that. This plan is taking us away from our educational vision. We will do what we need to do. There is going to be another legislative session in January so other changes may be coming down the road. Petitions are available for repeal.
Paul Murphy – There is no plan if our plan is denied. We are developing a plan with what our legislators told us we could do. We are confident that we are developing a plan the commissioner told us we could. We are making sure the things we are including are what the commissioner and legislators told us we could do. We have assurances that legislative help will be there if we need it in January.
Question from the public - Does it make any sense to repeal this at this point?
Bill Ferm – Repeal petitions are outside the auditorium. The constraints that this group has been operating under is to create a plan that fits the law.
Brian Hubbell – We’ve become very practical in that respect. Our decision has always been to make the quickest decision so we can get back to educating our kids.
Comment from the public - In a sense, the commissioner is intent on “crashing the plane”, but what the RPC is doing is jumping with a parachute.
Jeff Smith – Our energy is best spent on the parachute issue. He is personally in favor of repeal, but this plan may be our only option at this point.
Question from the public – Regarding Model 4, does it include cost saving estimates and what happens if the estimate doesn’t show the required savings?
Paul Murphy – The state will save money because they’re cutting 5% from special education subsidy. We’re not transporting fewer kids, heating fewer buildings, or treating fewer special education kids. We’re assured we don’t need to show savings. The state may make their 36 million savings by not giving money to districts. There may be districts that save money, but it is doubtful this will show at the community level.
Gail Marshall – There is an article from the Portland Press Herald on the mdischools.net site. The person who wrote the article was at another RPC meeting with a representative from the Department of Education. He said there aren’t going to be any immediate savings, maybe down the road, but not now. That is in marked contrast to what they originally told us. The Commissioner also said money from transportation can be carried over to teacher contracts to fix disparity. We already have a shared superintendent, director of special education, and director of curriculum. They are talking about saving money by holding money that they usually give out. Reality is that there is no money to save.
Comment from the public – There is interest in building flexibility into the plan. Can you give examples of how we can do that?
Phil Worden – We have not reached a decision on this. The general sense is that people are worried about losing control of local schools and that it is sound to make one educational community. Communities are not ready for Model 5. We are struggling with this issue. We’re not here to hand out a plan and have you cheer for us.
Barbara Meyers – It is hard for anybody to give the kind of feedback that is needed. No one has a contact point because we don’t have all the details.
Brian Hubbell – We need to go back to the example in developing common goals. Because of the autonomy each of our schools and teachers associations enjoyed, the common contract was not a threatening process. He doesn’t believe model 4 is in opposition to model 5.
Gail Marshall – Model 4 is on a continuum with Model 5. She explained how school board membership works currently. What we anticipate is that you have to get elected to the RSU board. Each town would elect its representatives. You would then become school board members in your town. It will just flow in a different direction from the way it does now. The plan doesn’t have to be complete by the Dec. 1 deadline, but we feel we are ready to give the state much of it. There is another RPC meeting tomorrow night to go over tonight’s meeting and details of the plan. On November 28 there will be another meeting to present the plan. We are hoping to meet with the commissioner after that. The RPC will still meet after that to deal with details.
Question from the public - If each town elects its own representatives, if there are 5, and Cranberry Isles joins and has 5, how does the vote work?
Rob Liebow – The board itself has got to be formulated by one man one vote. No one voter may have more than 2% power above any other voter. If you take Union 98 towns, give them a total of 1,000 votes, then split by voter and make sure there are 5 from Bar Harbor, 3 from Tremont, Southwest Harbor, and Mount Desert and 1 representative from each island, then split up the power. Cranberry would elect 5 RSU board of directors, even though one member would only be allowed to vote. The smallest size you could get for a total RSU board would be19 members.
Question from the public - A local committee who had strong feelings about a vote there wo…..???
Rob Liebow – The high school vote is not equal. If there are 5 members in attendance from Southwest Harbor, they determine the two members who will vote. Everyone has a voice, just a few have a vote.
Paul Murphy – That’s the way it works currently at the high school. The potential for contentiousness is there, but that is not the reality of the way it is now.
Rob Liebow – The RSU board will not vote on that many things. Local control would still be in effect so local boards would handle that.
Question from the public - This might fundamentally change our relationship with Trenton for the high school. Will we continue to retain those students? What would happen if Union 92’s plan was denied?
Gary Webber – Union 92 is to remain as they are now. We send kids wherever they want to go. The reason we’re not sitting at the table is the cost, mostly of the teacher contract and benefits. It would cost Trenton $500,000 to join this RSU. Our intention is to try to remain the same. We think we have a good chance of doing that.
Rob Liebow – If Union 92’s plan was turned down they would either have to pay penalties for being non-conforming or spend money and join us or Ellsworth. Down the line, there will be a slow erosion of kids from Union 92 attending MDIHS if they aren’t independent or part of our district.
Paul Murphy – It has been hard watching Trenton and Lamoine come to these meetings and see the pain it causes them if they have to join us or another unit. Lamoine already spends 95% of it’s budget on education. If you look at what joining our district would do to them, it just became clear that it was untenable for them. They have a very good case to stay on their own and we hope they preserve their long standing relationship with us.
Gail Marshall – Trenton has a long term relationship of families coming to MDIHS. We have always received the vast majority of their students.
Dianne Waters – She doesn’t think anyone would say we welcome the state telling us what to do, but now that we have the law, give us an opportunity to complete the job that we have started. She thinks Union 98’s strength comes from the high school and Union 98 structure. We have one superintendent, director of special education, director of curriculum, similar goals, etc. This gives us the opportunity to not only have the high school consolidated, but it also provides us the opportunity to give all elementary school students the same opportunities. This is a chance for us to see our children as “our children”. She hopes the committee does consider model 5 now, or at least leave the door open for us to move to Model 5 in the future.
Bill Ferm – This is one of the issues that the committee has repeatedly talked about.
Paul Murphy – Invited the public to attend RPC meetings and listen to the reasons for and against completing the process. His take is that moving to Model 5 is not going to be completed during this process, although we believe the door should be open to move in that direction. There are good arguments on both sides. He falls on the Model 4 side at the moment, but is not unmoved by arguments for Model 5. There is not enough consensus of towns to get there now.
Kelley Sanborn – Could you review some of the reasons “why not now”?
Paul Murphy – We are not able to list all the answers. Huge cost shift that is problematic. Would require relinquishing local control. For the fate of Tremont school to be more in Bar Harbor’s hands would not be a good move. Mount Desert currently spends double per student than what Bar Harbor spends. It is not hard to see what will happen. Schools will close. You don’t want your school at the mercy of a big town. Practically, that is what will happen. We hear that objection from RPC members from all towns, not just Bar Harbor and Mount Desert.
Jeff Smith – Tax lines are town lines. All of our schools meet learning standards and we have a common contract. Homogenizing everybody might not be good. There is nothing wrong with diversity. What about details? The devil is in the details. “Not with my kid you won’t”. It is fine to say a student can ride on the bus for 1 ½ hours, or not have a full art program, until it is your kid. Do we level the playing field? Hiring and firing of staff and personnel should be a local school board decision. Transferring teachers and administrators is not a good idea. Local schools know what is a good fit. As a tax payer, and father of a student, his thoughts are “not with my tax dollars”.
Gail Marshall – This process is not helping us educate our kids here and now. The longer we drag this process out the longer we are distracted by what we have been hired and elected to do. The most successful way to get through this process is to remain as neutral to what we have now as possible and then there is plenty of time for us to continue to work on ways to get closer and closer together. Whether you agree every kid should be treated equally or not, this is not the time. If we were to throw a radically different model at voters now it may not fly with them.
Tom Burton – He encouraged people to look at the Union 98 website. It seems like kids are arriving at the high school on a more even par than they used to. He doesn’t feel like there is a vast inequality in our union. We’re trying to navigate troubled waters and we don’t need to add more to it at this point.
Gail Marshall – Model 5 would essentially be one school system, one regional board, no local boards. Each town would get assessed by some means not yet determined. You can in no way assume that four elementary schools and one high school would remain.
Hannah Pingree – She represents Tremont and some of Mount Desert. She is proud of the work that the committee has done. She thinks that what we are proposing won’t be challenging. What is going to happen is that the educational committee is coming back.
Raising 2 mils is still an issue that is a real barrier in getting people together. MDI should be in the clear with the plan we are proposing. The 2 mils will be addressed through the legislature and we should be able to get beyond that. The legislature is trying to give communities more flexibility with money issues. She will try to continue to support us in keeping our district the way that works best for us.
Ted Koffman – The RPC has become legendary in Augusta as the MDI community. He will continue to look for remedies to this bill in January.
Dennis Damon – The small group from MDI did an incredible job in keeping him informed with what was going on during this process. He relied on their thoughts. He said he could not support the budget because it contained the plan to consolidate schools. In the senate, it’s a very close margin and when he said he couldn’t vote to pass the budget, they got into substantial negotiations. When the MDI group said the law was okay with them, he cast his vote. Because of the fact that we were looking at a reduction in students by 2012, it was hard to see that the consolidation law would not be a good thing. He couldn’t see spending the money. That was what was driving the train to make cuts. Whether or not the law is overturned or substantially changed by the law we create, he thinks we have done the right thing in moving forward and trying to create what we have.
Hannah Pingree – The Governor was very aggressive. The Legislature pushed back hard. They worked hard to make a law that was more workable and would not radically alter our educational communities. There are other legislators who feel we need to cut more. A group in the legislature, close to half, felt something significant had to happen.
Scott McFarland – He feels fairly settled right now about what we are going to have now, but the sequel really bothers him. With the decrease in students coming up, the problem is still there. What do you envision for the future?
Dennis Damon – He hasn’t even thought of a sequel in terms of education. Health and human services and education count for 82 or 83% of the budget. That is a large amount to be spent in just two areas. There is a tremendous amount of need in the state and he doesn’t think we are going to achieve the $36 million in savings and will that be enough to change our woes. Probably not until growth puts us back.
Hannah Pingree – There won’t be a sequel for a long time. The last time major education reform happened was in the 50’s.
Paul Murphy – Why didn’t the bill get killed? When we were in Augusta, Dennis Damon portrayed his position and legislators came to the front for us. If you followed this process in the legislature as we did, there was an inevitability for something to happen and it was coming back soon. While we may have won the day by Senator Damon saying he would vote no until we were happy, we would not have won the war. With Hannah and Ted’s good work and the commissioner’s magnanimity to sit in that room and deal with us, we hope that it will allow our school system to survive.
Gail Marshall – This attempt to manage our schools and grab more power to Augusta in terms of our schools, is a larger part of what the Department of Education is trying to do. They are getting very heavy handed and it continues to expand exponentially. We need collaborative leadership, but right now, the Department of Education is a one way street and that needs to change. We are looking at high school reform as proposed by the commissioner. We don’t want to reject plans just because they come from Augusta, but when we have to sacrifice our individual students as a result of this, we have to look at the big picture. What we are dealing with is what teachers and administrators have had to deal with for years.
Comment from the public - Thought about repealing, but it sounds like this isn’t what we want to be doing right now. This has lead to important discussions. To repeal this sounds like a waste of time.
Skip Greenlaw from Stonington – Because of the structure of Union 98, we were the closest in the entire state to bring about an RSU with as little pain as possible. Model 5 is what is happening all over the state. Trenton said it would cost them a lot of money. All other towns are bleeding badly. You are lucky that you had good people to make changes. The state needs some leadership and he firmly believes the state of Maine can’t afford to fund education at the 55% level. He thinks the only way to fix it is to decrease this level. They are funding in aggregate, not 55% for each town.
Bill Ferm thanked everyone for attending and the meeting ended at 9:05 pm