Reorganization Planning Committee Meeting

30 April 2008

DRAFT Minutes

Present:  Chair Gail Marshall, Vice-Chair Brian Hubbell

Bar Harbor: Paul Murphy, Bob Garland   Mount Desert: Jeff Smith  

Southwest Harbor:  Amy Young, Kristin Hutchins    Swan’s Island:  Tammy Tripler

Tremont: Scott Grierson  

Others in attendance: Rob Liebow, George Peckham, Mia Brown, Brian Reilly, Jim Mooers and Rick Barter;  Lamoine:  Kathleen Rybarz    Trenton:  Gary Webber and Judy Sproule

Commencement of Meeting

Gail Marshall called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.

Review of Draft Minutes from 27 February 2008

MOVED by Bob Garland, seconded by Brian Hubbell, and unanimously voted to approve the minutes of 27 February 2008 as presented. 

Legislative Update

Gail Marshall handed out LD 2323 and reviewed it.  The commissioner has the discretion to receive an application for a system to be an alternative organizational structure.  If you do that you are essentially exempt from having to reorganize under the rest of the law.  You have to have 1,200 students to qualify for this.  Adoption of consistent, not identical, school policies, calendars and a plan for consistent collective bargaining agreements.  We insisted that we wanted there to continue to be autonomy in the elementary schools.  We have worked hard to standardize our policies but allow our communities to deviate from that when they felt it was important to do so. Without our common contract, we wouldn’t be here. Will have to do referendums for budgets.  Conducted on the same day, but not within a certain time after town meetings.  We still can maintain our high school board, our elementary school boards, a separate Union 98 board, and the MDIHS Trustees because we are going to be exempt from reorganizing.

Paul Murphy – We cannot have a Union 98 board.  We must have an inter-local agreement but it cannot be a Union 98 board.

Gail Marshall – It’s not going to be called a Union 98 board.  It can operate under the same rules and guidelines as we have now.  It’s going to have to be a creature that is created under what’s called the inter-local agreement of Title 30.  It’s a very broad law that says governmental structures and municipalities have duties that they need to perform.  You may find it to your advantage to coalesce with other structures to get those duties performed.  It could be about trash pick-up, or the central office for the school system.

Paul Murphy – She [commissioner] was excited about the inter-local agreement because it could apply to this alternative structure and they were looking for a way for schools that don’t comply with the law to survive.

Gail Marshall – Unions cease to exist, but the law has been changed so that SAD’s and CSD’s that don’t comply will still exist.

Brian Hubbell -  I don’t believe that it [inter-local agreement] gives her [commissioner] wide latitude.  It’s very specific about what attributes the alternative organizational structure must have.  If a group of districts came up with a plan that met those particular requirements that she would have a difficult time turning it down.  Part of what was important to get this law passed was that it had to be generally available to all.

Brian Hubbell – Of the existing school systems in the state, ours is probably the nearest to fitting as is.  That is not to say that other districts couldn’t approach what we have here.  Also critical to understand that there is some latitude in the law about submitting a plan that allows them over time to develop a system like what we have now rather than arriving at it instantaneously.

Gail Marshall – Everything remains in existence and that includes local school boards, the private and special acts, and all of this. You could continue to tuition students to the high school and be a member of Union 98 or whatever we call it, and be part of the inter-local agreement in the way that you are currently part of the Union 98 board.   

Paul Murphy –  We need to put an inter-local agreement together.  We need to move transportation to the central office.  The big change will be that aid will be distributed to the central office as a lump sum rather than distributed to each town.

Gail Marshall – We could nominate, through the Union 98 board, Rob to be the director of transportation and then what’s changed?  The different schools still have their own buses and run their own systems and then he’s just coordinating it all.  There’s been a lot of talk about whether the bus system could run more efficiently.  I think the appropriate place to question that is not at this group, but for the Union 98 board or inter-local board, to say Rob, take the next year and figure out with your administrative team the most efficient way to run the bus system and report back to us.  That’s how those efficiency issues should be dealt with.  It’s an administrative job to do and it could be done.  It doesn’t mean we have to transfer title of the buses to the central office.  We have a special education director but we all hire our own special education teachers and they are beholden to our individual schools and we make staffing decisions based on the needs of our individual schools and we do that locally.  I don’t see that that has to be any different.  I do think it’s worth looking at the most efficient way to run the bus system and at least know what those options are.  But I think that’s something we task our administrators with, not have a board like this figuring it out.

Brian Hubbell – That is actually a provision that is allowed under the general RSU law was something that we negotiated back when we were talking to Senator Mills.  His language was requiring the core functions of administration of transportation, administration of special education, administration of curriculum, not those functions themselves.  That was where that distinction was made.  It’s not peculiar to this alternative structure. 

Mia Brown – As commissioners come and go, once we’re approved is there any sort of re-look at us?  And if we drop below 1200 [students]?

Gail Marshall – No.  Somebody could always amend the law at some point in the future, but as the law stands now, no.  You submit a plan that says you’re going to get to these core functions being done in a common way, and I’m not suggesting in any way that anyone would approach this in bad faith, but you submit a plan and say we’re going to try to get to a common teacher contract and we’re going to do it in x number of years.  You get to that end point and you haven’t been able to accomplish it, is there a penalty for that?  No.  We’re still in a voluntary situation.  Suppose we do a plan and then one of our teachers’ associations or one of our towns decide they don’t want to have the same kind of contract.  As long as we’ve gotten the plan approved and we’ve done the reorganizing, there’s no turning back now.

Paul Murphy – That’s as the law stands today.  I have a feeling they’ll fix that.  It struck me as soon as we read it, there’s no check.

Brian Hubbell – But there’s a reason why that’s set up that way.  It would be impossible to dictate some sort of collective bargaining outcome through the law.  There is no way to enforce that through the law itself.

Kristin Hutchins – Do we still have to prove we’re going to save money?

Gail Marshall – No.  We’ve done the kind of work already that they think needs to be done to be a great consolidated system.  We have to submit a notice of intent that we are going to seek an alternative structure and then we have to submit a plan.  Those are things we have to work on.  The law is not in effect.  It didn’t pass as an emergency law so I think it’s 90 days after the date of the governor’s signature.  If we could have a plan ready to submit when this actually goes into effect and get beyond this, that would be my idea of a good thing. 

Scott Grierson – On the finances, am I reading this correctly that we have a great deal of latitude with the funding formula?

Gail Marshall – No, the funding formula is already in existence under the Private and Special Act and that will remain.

Paul Murphy – In forming an inter-local agreement we could come to a different cost sharing agreement theoretically.

Gail Marshall – For the central office.

Paul Murphy – For the union.

Brian Reilly – To follow up on Scott’s comment, if we wanted to, through this process, the towns could agree to amend the high school formula under the existing private and special act?

Gail Marshall – No, that’s an act of the legislature.

Brian Reilly – Doesn’t that allow the towns to all agree and then go back to the legislature and ask them for a change?

Gail Marshall – You’d have to be asking the entire legislature to approve a change to the system, to the law.

Paul Murphy – The answer is several things.  This law does not address the private and special act in any way other than it leaves it in tact and alone.  Two, so the process and the way that the private and special act would be changed is no different than it was before consolidation.  And what that means is that if the towns want to, not the RPC, not the school boards, the town governments need to come together and come to an agreement on what they see is fair and then petition the legislature to change that law.  It’s not a school issue.  It’s a municipal issue.

Brian Reilly – This alternative organizational structure number one still has to be voted on by all the towns?  And when would that vote be occurring?  And is there a timeline spelled out for this?

GM – Yes.  After the commissioner approves the plan. 

BH – The deadline for the referendum is by the end of next January because they extended the deadline.

GM – We should compile a list of the tasks we need to perform and the topics we need to address.  I’m going to propose that we start meeting every other week again.  How would you like to proceed?  We have our original plan.  Some of that could be lifted and rearranged. 

BH – Assuming we move in this direction, it seems to me that an early step would be to commission Dick Spencer to work on drafting the inter-local agreements.

GM – Perhaps that’s the cart before the horse.  We need to make sure of what we want in the inter-local agreement.  We could decide to mirror what we have now, but maybe next time we should just review how the union actually functions and whether or not that’s what we want to be proposing.  Would you like to have that happen sometime soon?

KH – As a person who’s not on the school board, it would be interesting to me, although I’m going to assume I’m going to be led by the recommendations of the school board members.

BH – I’m guessing that what we’re talking about doing is trying to model what we have right now in terms of relationships in such a way that it complies with this law.  I think that’s the performance specification for the inter-local agreement.  I’m not imagining what we would ask it to do outside of what we do right now, but I’m open to suggestions.

GM – I do think it’s worth reviewing and explaining how the union functions and what we would be requesting our communities to be agreeing to do.

KH – Does the union have any written document or charter?   

Rob – Not to my knowledge.

GM – It’s going to be somewhat guided by the core requirements. We will be delineating in this document that we’re combining to provide system administration, and special education direction, and curriculum direction, and transportation direction and business functions so we will be delineating those things in a way we haven’t previously because those things evolved over time. 

Peckham – The Town of Mt. Desert is bound by a non-binding referendum that voted to have something done to change the way this place is funded.  It seems to me it would be very important to get that out of the way before the voting time came around.  Suppose this all comes to fruition and you have the vote and one town votes against it.  What happens?

GM – Yes, we have the non-binding referendum.  I’m not sure what the non-binding referendum actually binds us to.  We’ll have to figure out how to process that issue. It may be something that is done entirely outside of this regional planning.  It’s back to where we were having a dialogue between the towns, maybe it’s a league of towns thing.  If a town backs out then they’ve got no central office, no superintendent, no special ed director, no curriculum coordinator, they’re not playing as part of that, you’d still be bound by the legislation for the high school but you wouldn’t be a player there any more and you wouldn’t have a voice at the central board. 

BH – We have some people here from outside the RPC from Trenton and Lamoine.  We have informally heard that there may be interest in talking with us about participating in the RPC.  I think our attitude at this point is that we want to go ahead with the plan we have with the people that are participating in it with the eye that over time there may be occasion to alter it if there’s a proposal that seems to make sense to everybody.  I’m asking the RPC if that is the direction we want to take with this rather than going back to the beginning.  We may want to keep it in mind when we talk about what the form of the inter-local agreement is.

Originally when we formed this RPC we invited Trenton and Lamoine and other towns to participate.  Early in the process they decided to pursue their own reorganization plan through Union 92.  Now that the law has changed they may be reconsidering their options,  so we may have to decide how we respond to that also.  I think right now we have a particular plan that we want to move forward with.

Grierson – And that doesn’t include Trenton and Lamoine?

BH – I think we would be open to suggestions from them.  At this point we’ve sort of made our commitment to this organization and it’s in all of our best interests to keep going with it.  Though if we can do that in a way that doesn’t exclude them in the future, I think that would be to everyone’s advantage as well.

Garland – It would seem like getting our plan together as it presently exists would then give any other surrounding town, if they wanted to join, a structure in which to move into.  If we tried to be super comprehensive right now it seems we could stand to lose some of what we’ve gained.

Peckham – It’s been a while since I read the legislative act that formed this creation right here, but how would that act be dealt with with respect to Trenton and Lamione if they did want to join us.  Doesn’t that act just specifically refer to these four towns?

Rob – No, but it does have a clause about withdrawal, which is fairly difficult with indebtedness, but it also has a clause about adding additional towns should the original four groups choose to do that.  There is a statement about additions of towns.  They have to abide by the formula that is presently set up.

Peckham – Nothing in there about taking tuition students?

GM – No, but that’s a separate state law and contract.

Webber – As far as the pay structure and one common pay scale, the law says that as long as you are working toward the progress of it there is no stipulation to when it needs to be completed, if I read that right.

GM – You’re going to have to present to the commissioner a plan that articulates how you get to that consistency, and the longest she talked about was five years.

Tripler – Commenting on the common contract, ours is a little different and we made huge adjustments but it was one of the best things we ever did.   Being a small school, it was very difficult. We took a big kink in our budget to do that and bring our bus drivers up who were so far out of line.  It’s hard for a small community to do that but at the same time we’re looking at what’s fair and just and how to create ways to make a good impression on our school district so that the school that we have will become better.  And it has.  When they saw how far out of line they were with schools on the mainland, they saw it coming together.

GM – The outer islands were not part of the common contract bargaining process and I don’t anticipate that they would be.  There is so much latitude for outer islands just to be exemptions because they are outer islands. 

Garland – Moving on, you suggested this board become familiar with this structure as it presently operates for Union 98.  When would we do that?

GM – Two weeks.  We’ll have a conversation with Dick Spencer between now and then to see what the plan would require.

PM – I want to go back to the issues of other towns joining this effort and make clear that I’ll only speak for myself.  I think that Trenton and Lamoine’s students are vital to our high school and we don’t want to lose them.  The problem with your folks joining the union is, I would advocate strongly that we require you folks to be at par, your teachers, to be at par with our teachers within a very short period of time, whether that’s two years or three years. 

Judy – The reason we’re here is because we would like to engage in a conversation with you, but you assume that we’re not ready to join you in the conversation or to meet you where you want to be.  A lot has happened in the last year and we dealt with these horrible politics and these financial issues.  What if the financial barriers were gone?  I think this new law really erases those financial barriers, but watching what has happened in the last year led us to focus on what is really important and that is the welfare of our students.  Virtually all of our students come to MDI high school and it’s a very important point for us to have our students ready.  When you speak of readiness, I’m thinking of the fact that you have the curriculum that our students need to make them better students at your school which also enhances your students.  And rather than just assume that we’re not able to meet you, I think it would be a good idea to have conversation to see where we all are.

GM – I don’t have a problem doing that at all.  I think there are some nuts and bolts stuff that   

would take place at a different level than the RPC.  Last year I suggested that it would be a good idea if administrators from other towns that were considering joining this system got up close and personal with our administrative team because there is a whole culture here in terms of how that operates, I’m not saying it’s a better or worse culture, but that has to work on a day to day basis and people have to know what those day to day realities are for starters.  There is the funding issue and the tuition issue.  Would there be a way to put another town in this system but still have you not be a part of the high school and send tuition kids?  We ran preliminary numbers last year that had the potential of showing that Trenton might end up paying even less per pupil than the tuition rate under existing formulas.  And that of course would be a non-starter so the tuition began to look like a pretty good deal.  And once we start tinkering with those numbers and adding other players at the same time that’s a complicated issue for us already.  By all means we can converse about those things but we need to do it on more than just this level.

BH – I think we are in the position where we have an RPC that is somewhere in the middle of its work and we have to continue with our plan.  In order for us to include you at this point we need to hear a proposal perhaps. I don’t think we are suggesting that we are excluding you or assuming that you can’t join us.  We left off where Trenton and Lamoine were going off on their own.  If you have some vision of how you want to join this project we need to hear from you and we are open to that suggestion.  I don’t think we want to make any assumptions at all about what either your capabilities or interests are in relation to that.  We just need to point out that it’s our interest and probably yours that if you want to join us that we move this project forward.  I think you understand very well where we are and what it would look like for you to be involved with us.  In some respects I think, speaking for myself, the next move would be yours.

GM – We’re going to enter a brave new world of voter referendum budget approval. If we were to bring in other towns we’re bringing in other voter populations and we’d need to hear that there had been a conversation that had taken place that made it clear that the community was pretty much on board with being a part of this system in all the ways that that means, which means paying for it.  And that’s painful.  And I say that from a position of luxury and I fully realize that as a resident of the town of Mt. Desert.  That’s a reality that isn’t going to go away.  I need to have questions answered about that too. 

Reilly – In my simple way of thinking about this, if we currently have a union right now and we have our attorney draft documents so we can continue to have our union right now, and another town wants to join our union and follow the rules that we decided within the union, the more the merrier.  If Trenton and Lamoine want to follow the inter-governmental agreements that we all agree to, that’s great.

GM –  Yes, it sounds nice but we have to play it out.  We can’t put another elementary school on the backs of our special ed and curriculum people.

Reilly – We have a great system here.  And you know we have a great system because you just spent the last 15 months saving it.  I want to share this great system with our neighbors.  You said we need to share what we have with our neighbors and you said that when we talked about our funding formula and about the way to fund education.  If we have a great system we should share our great system and welcome everybody on board. 

GM – So you’re willing to see Mt. Desert’s taxes raised to bring in more communities that have lower valuations than communities on this island?

Reilly – Absolutely.  I would be willing to consider that.  I’ve always been willing to consider new ways to fund our education.  I’m not tied to the old way of funding education.

GM – There’s only one way to fund education right now and that is through taxes. 

PM – I encourage you to ask your RPC representatives to do that and to vote that way when it comes time to.  It would be irresponsible to say come join the party, doesn’t matter what it costs, doesn’t matter what burden it puts on our central office, doesn’t matter what it does to our school system, come on and have fun or share the wealth.  It just doesn’t work that way. Webber?? – You have an RPC of eight members.  I only hear from three.  What do the other members feel about potentially having Lamoine and Trenton joining?

KH – I’m certainly open to hearing from Lamoine and Trenton joining us, but I do think that we can’t be slowed down in what we’re working on here.  I definitely would like to hear, can you propose something to us?

Grierson – Any of us that have spent any time in Trenton and Lamoine know it’s full of       

people who used to be Southwest Harbor and Tremont residents and they can’t afford property on Mount Desert Island anymore and they’re living in Trenton and Lamoine.  It’s part of the same base of people.  They just got pushed off the island because they can’t afford it.  If there’s a way to work it out with them I think we should try to find a way to work it out.  They’re part of our community. 

Tripler –  It’s very difficult to think about bringing people up, but when you look at what the state average is for jobs across the board, that’s what we [Swan’s Island] based it on, we were 50% below.  If you don’t offer people the same starting pay or the same common ground you’re not going to get the best people for your area. 

GM – Interesting discussion, but the subject of collective bargaining and what happens in the collective bargaining contracts, other than the fact that the law is going to require consistent contracts, it’s not really the work of the RPC to figure out what the terms of the contract should be other than demonstrating that you’re going to be able to find that consistency.  That’s what school boards do with their teacher’s associations, that’s what selectmen do with 
their town employees, that’s where that happens.

Young – Despite the legislature’s desire to have things happen as quickly as possible, as evidenced by their short timelines, and despite this group’s desire to get back to educating our children, the truth is that it can only happen so fast. It’s one thing to open the door and say come one come all.  But it’s not going to do anyone any good to expand too quickly and then fail everybody.  It doesn’t mean it will never happen or that we don’t want it to happen. We need to make it fair and equal for everyone.

Peckham – Is there any activity still with Greenlaw and the coalition to attempt to repeal?

Judy – Yes there is.  They’re in the process of getting things straightened out with the legal opinion and the secretary of state to see if the signatures we have now are valid or if this new law makes them invalid and they have to start over.  There are plenty of people still willing to put pressure on the legislature in January to repeal the law.

GM – How would one create a structure so that you could expand or contract it as circumstances warrant?  I think I understand what you are saying, Amy.  It has been 15 months and I am very concerned about the diversion from the quality of education that this whole process has created for our administrators and the wear and tear this process is having on these people and their ability to be the educational leaders we want them to be. We need to allow our administrators to get back to running our schools.  This has been a huge diversion of their time. 

KH – Have we given the Trenton representatives anything they can work with?

GM – I’m curious to know what Trenton and Lamoine’s intentions are and what they think their options are at this point.  Any information would be useful.

Judy – Things have changed and we would very much like to explore the possibilities. I wouldn’t want to see anyone slow you down in what you are doing, but we have students in need too and we would like to get past this and see our students settled in the best educational system we can find for them.  But if the RPC isn’t willing to change any of the participants at this point in time then it would be foolish of us to waste our time meeting with your administrators and school personnel.

GM – I’m hearing concerns and difficulties and challenges that need to be addressed, but we want to see what can happen.  There is a desire on my part to get a plan submitted and get it approved and to function the way that we have.  I have put on my list for Dick Spencer how it would be possible to structure this so that we might convince the commissioner to approve a plan that would allow us to grow.  That doesn’t preclude a plan that has other towns on board to begin with, but it also allows us to continue to work at our pace but not shut the door to other possibilities.

Judy – There are other factors too.   The way the law currently stands there is no way to get out of an RSU.  If events were to push us into another situation, we might not have that option in the future and might not have that option for our high school students either.

Kathleen Rybarz – The governor has made us a minimal receiver.  He has taken away 95% of our subsidy.  We join you now as minimum receivers.  That changes the picture for our town.  We are looking at Trenton as a partner so whatever they do, we are probably going to similarly do.  Our last graduating class also has 90% going to MDIHS.  That shows us our community is changing also.

Rob – One of the big pushes of the law in the beginning was efficiency - administrative efficiency, efficiency in savings.   Consistent would mean consistently bargained at the same time so that you didn’t have people out of sync. 

GM – We used to spend a lot of money having the central office figuring out 5 different employment contracts.  It was a zoo for them to try to figure out how to manage all that.  That was one of the big pluses of the common contract. 

Next meeting Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.

Adjournment

MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Brian Hubbell, and unanimously voted to adjourn the meeting at 9:15 p.m.

Respectfully submitted, Selena Dunbar, Recording Secretary