Following the passage of an initial withdrawal referendum, a four-member West Bath Withdrawal Committee was formed and tasked with negotiating a withdrawal agreement with an RSU 1 Working Group. West Bath residents will vote on that agreement at a special election, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 13, to determine if the town will withdraw subject to its terms and conditions.
RSU 1 provided preliminary figures for the potential cost of withdrawal, which indicated an increased cost of approximately $290,000 should West Bath vote to withdraw, causing a roughly 3 percent increase in the budget for remaining RSU towns.
According to school officials, there would be an estimated 32 school choice students at West Bath School for the 2015-16 school year that could lose their placement if West Bath chooses to withdraw, as there is no provision in the agreement for the RSU to pay tuition for school choice students to attend a new West Bath school district.
School officials estimated that to tuition the 32 school choice students to West Bath School, based on state tuition numbers, would cost the school unit $255,616 for a total combined loss of roughly $547,000.
“The issue of paying tuition for RSU 1 kids to go to West Bath, it’s a question of fairness,” said Allison Hepler, a member of the Woolwich Board of Selectmen. “The choice is something that parents make … and the rest of the RSU would take a hit for that,” if the RSU tuitioned out school choice students.
At an Oct. 7 meeting, RSU 1 board of directors chairman Tim Harkins said that, despite the efforts of the Withdrawal Committee to maintain school choice at the elementary level, a provision to allow school choice for RSU 1 students to continue was removed from the draft withdrawal agreement at the request of the RSU.
Harkins cited the associated increase in cost to residents of the RSU’s other towns — Arrowsic, Bath, Phippsburg and Woolwich — as the reason for removing the school choice language from the agreement.
Phippsburg resident Cameron Jacobs, who has four children attending West Bath School as school choice students, spoke in favor of the RSU paying tuition for students to continue at West Bath School.
“At this point, the choice families have somehow been dropped,” said Jacobs. “It seems like it’s cut and dry for RSU 1 … where is the willingness to make some type of agreement?”
“If there were a situation where (West Bath) said, ‘We’ll take them and it won’t cost anything,’ it would be a non-issue,” said Harkins, “but they need revenue for those kids.”
Harkins said the West Bath Withdrawal Committee and RSU 1 working group plan to meet today to further discuss options for maintaining school choice if West Bath votes to withdraw.
“The $500,000 number is highly simplified and makes some radical assumptions that we should work through,” said David Strelneck, a Bath resident with two children at West Bath School.
“We heard about several possible new sources of money that could be on the table, some of it voiced by the West Bath folks who talked about whether or not they would … realize a substantial cost hit,” he said. “There is some willingness and some spirit out there to sit down and pencil through all this stuff.”
David King, a member of the Woolwich Board of Selectmen, said that when his daughter wanted to attend Bath Middle School instead of Woolwich Central School, he paid for her tuition to attend her choice of school.
“There is a very simple way for all of these students to continue in West Bath, and that’s for their parents to do the same thing,” said King. “I don’t know how to explain to an elderly couple living on a fixed income that their taxes are going to go up $50-$100 this year because 32 students have been granted out of district tuition.”
West Bath resident Jennifer Bowdish noted that West Bath taxpayers had contributed to the completion of the Woolwich Central School, though it was a state-funded project.
Bowdish also cited a provision in the agreement that West Bath will pay tuition for any West Bath K- 5 student that elects to attend an RSU 1 school, and will pay tuition for the total number of West Bath 6-12 students who attend RSU 1 schools, or for 75 percent of the total number of West Bath students in those grades educated at public expense, whichever is greater.
“You people from Woolwich need to understand that your hand is still in my pocket as a taxpayer,” said Bowdish. “I want the kids that are from Bath, that are from Woolwich, from Phippsburg, from wherever … to participate in our school, which is a community like no other.”
Preliminary cost estimates for a standalone West Bath school district provided by Planning Decisions, a research and planning firm based in Portland, indicate that West Bath might see a savings by exiting the RSU.
According to the analysis, the cost for West Bath of operating in the RSU for 2014-15 was approximately $2.73 million. The cost for 2014-15 if West Bath had operated as a standalone district under the terms of withdrawal agreement was estimated to be $2.59 million.
“It strikes me that it’s a very sketchy preliminary budget,” said Woolwich resident Charlie Durfee of the analysis. “I really would encourage you to deeply delve into these numbers,” he said, noting that Wiscasset’s budget had increased significantly after withdrawing from RSU 12.
“Through the process, we were definitely cognizant of what happened in Wiscasset,” said Withdrawal Committee member Dennis Crews.
“A lot of the line items (in the analysis) … are directly from the West Bath portion of the RSU budget,” said Crews, and added that other amounts, such as administrative expenses, where modified to reflect different costs the town might incur as a standalone district.
If West Bath withdraws, “We may not hire a superintendent for $100,000,” said Withdrawal Committee member Kyle Yacoben, also a member of the RSU 1 board of directors. “We may outsource for less,” he said, adding that the committee had contacted the Brunswick school department about the possibility of contracting central office services.
The West Bath Withdrawal Committee and RSU 1 Working Group will meet to discuss a tuition agreement for school choice students at 6 p.m. tonight at the West Bath Fire Hall located at 192 State Road.
rgargiulo@timesrecord.com
Another meeting
THE WEST BATH Withdrawal Committee and RSU 1 Working Group will meet to discuss a tuition agreement for school choice students at 6 p.m. tonight at the West Bath town hall located at 219 Fosters Point Road. The meeting could be moved to the West Bath Fire Hall located at 192 State Road.
MEMBERS OF THE public interested in attending the meeting are encouraged to check the West Bath website prior to the meeting to confirm the location.
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