The school districts of Windham, Westbrook and Raymond will not merge, following a vote by school officials at Monday’s meeting at Windham High School.

The possibility Windham and Raymond will consolidate does remain.

The school districts of Windham and Raymond both voted to pull out of the three-way merger while Westbrook voted to stay in. School representatives at the meeting broke into groups by district, then each district submitted one vote.

Westbrook school Superintendent Stan Sawyer said he was disappointed with the results of the vote.

“I’m sold completely on consolidating (with Windham and Raymond) and I’m powerless to do anything about it,” said Sawyer. He said resources are becoming tighter and all schools will receive less money from Augusta for next’s year budget.

He said the three districts would save $200,000 in the 2009 to 2010 school year, after a $500,000 in start-up costs were paid.

“I think that was a conservative figure,” said Sawyer. He said the start-up costs would only have to be paid once and the savings would start to roll in after that.

Donn Davis, assistant superintendent of the Windham School Department, said those start up costs include employee contracts that don’t expire until 2010. After that, the district of Westbrook, Windham and Raymond would have saved $700,000 each year.

Representatives from the three districts had been meeting since August to determine how they might function together as a regional school unit and how much money it would save.

Jeff Vermette of the Windham School Committee said his town and Raymond decided to pull out when they realized there would be no money saved for the first two years, and then very little after that.

“This was supposed to be a way to get control of spiraling education costs,” said Vermette. He said the Windham School Committee didn’t believe the merger would be able to pass the mandatory referendum vote by the Windham residents because of the delay in savings

He said consolidation plans have been watered down by the Legislature from the original proposal by Gov. John Baldacci. Instead of 26 school districts, the Maine Legislature changed that number to no more than 80. Vermette said with this version of consolidation law, to save money school districts would need to make changes that go beyond reductions in administrative jobs.

“We would need to have the ability to close schools, lower staff and narrow curriculum,” said Vermette.

At Monday’s meeting, committee facilitator Mary Jane McCalmon, an independent education consultant, said the school districts can now pursue other consolidation intents they filed with the Maine Department of Education last year.

Both Windham and Westbrook are large enough that they do not have to consolidate with another town, and both have already had alternate letters of intent approved with the state that would allow them to stand alone.

Windham Superintendent Sandy Prince said his town would probably consolidate with Raymond.

Teresa Sadak of the Raymond School Committee confirmed that her town is looking at consolidating with Windham, and its good that the Maine Department of Education has already approved letters from each town to merge with each other.

“We don’t have to start the whole thing all over again,” said Sadak.

Sawyer said Westbrook will look for another town or towns to consolidate with, but may end up standing alone. He said Westbrook may end up sharing functions with Windham and Raymond, such as a special education program or a transportation system.