Augusta plan rejection has leaders miffed

Kennebec Journal, August 29, 2007

(excerpt) It took the state less than 24 hours to tell city school leaders it might reject Augusta's proposal not to join with a neighboring school district.

Five days after that, Augusta educators are still trying to find out, in writing, why.

They don't know why the state's calculation of a possible merger of Augusta schools and School Administrative District 11 is more than a half-million dollars off the city's calculation, which they say was based on state numbers.

At stake, just days before a state filing deadline, is whether the Augusta Board of Education's unanimous vote last week to go it alone and not consolidate with SAD 11 will be rejected by the state due to the discrepancy in numbers.

In a presentation to the board last week, Superintendent Cornelia Brown said Augusta taxpayers would have to pay $560,000 more per year for schools if Augusta merged with SAD 11, which has schools in Gardiner, West Gardiner, Randolph and Pittston.

Upon learning of the Augusta board's vote and the $560,000 figure in the newspaper the next day, however, state Department of Education officials said their calculation of the financial impact shows Augusta taxpayers would only have to pay $27,000 more per year if Augusta merged with SAD 11. And they said consolidating the two school systems is bound to generate more savings than that $27,000 figure.