Big issues cause heavy turnout for Board Meeting
By Elizabeth Prata Salvetti

Gray-New Gloucester--The MSAD 15 Board of Directors faced about 70 community memembers at their April 3 Board meeting. The issues of FY 2002-03 budget, ongoing support staff negotiations, and the issue of whether to renovate two elementary schools or consolidate them into one were discussed for two hours Wednesday night.

The budget increase, 4.72%, is due almost entirely to contracted salary obligations. The Board has deliberately tried to flatline the budget this year, after a contentious process last year where the budget was defeated by a 2 to 1 margin in both towns, twice, before being accepted.

The Board asked for citizen comments, and Selectmen Bob Leighton was first of about twenty citizens to speak his mind. Leighton said that "Administration salaries seem to be high, $5,000 to $10,000 in some cases. I’d like to have that looked into."

Gray resident Steve Pelletier also mentioned Administrators. He said, "We always cut the people that are closest to the community, like police officers, fire fighters, teachers. To really save the most money quickly, I say we start lopping at the top." He advocated for abolishing the top Administrative jobs. Board Chair Sarah McCleary said that it was not possible thi year to do that, sionce the positions are contracted. "That’s just not realistic," she said. "We can take a look at that next year, but this year it is not a trade-off we can make."

High School Principal Scott Lydick and Business and Finance Director Brian McDonnell listen to public comments about abolishing some Administrative positions.

Other comments related to the Community Resource Officer’s position at the high school. The position was funded for three years through a Federal grant, but the grant is ending. It is up for the community to decide if it wants to add the position, and pay for it locally. The community has been a resoundingly supportive. The position is already in the proposed budget, and the comments at the meeting and through e-mails and letters to the Board were all positive.

Gail Raymond of Gray said she has two teenagers in school. "After Columbine, the kids have been talking more about safety. It’s reassuring to them to have an officer there. Please hold on to our officer," she said.

Gray-New Gloucester High School Student Council President read a letter from the Council, stating unqualified support for funding the position. "His position means far more than the monetary value. He is an integral part of the staff."

Other public comments related to the consolidated school concept. "After two years of moving slowly and deliberately in one direction, [renovating both Memorial and Russell Schools], with strong community indicators that we should not consolidate, it was a big change for us to think of consolidating," McCleary said. The change in direction was prompted by the Department of Education’s Site Evaluation Team. They visited both schools in March and gave strong suggestions to the Board and Superintendent that funding for two schools is much less likely than funding one new school. There are over 100 applications for education funding this year, and the State will accept fewer than 20.

This caused the Board to revise their application and propose building a community school, perhaps near Dunn School in New Gloucester, where the District already owns land. If the District makes the list, taxpayers will only need to locally match 5% of approximately 12 million dollars to build the new school. If it is not locally funded, or if the community wants to renovate two schools without state funding help, the taxpayers would be asked to pay about $1.1 million per year for twenty years in debt service for the renovations, all of it local.

New Gloucester Selectmen Steve Chandler said that, "To make a quick decision based on economics is penny wise and pound foolish. We should be cautious."

Gail Raymond said that "We’d like to keep our community schools but the pie is only so big. If we have to think about a consolidated school then we should open our hearts and minds to that."

Carl Holmquist of Gray said that he had gone through the SAD 15 School system when many of the buildings were new, and was proud to receive educational benefits from being educated in new facilities. "But I brought my daughter to kindergarten screening at Russell School this week, and saw the deplorable condition the school is in. Whatever we do, we have to make sure that we have appropriate resources to maintain these buildings."

The Board voted to send in a revised application proposing to build one new school and see where that lands the District on the list. Board member Carmel Morin said that he is against the idea of a consolidated school, and voted against the revised application. "We had three bureaucrats come down here, wqho aren’t even elected, and spent two hours inour schools, and now they are telling us what’s best for our schools." He also declared that he will take out papers to gather signatures to move the School Administrative District to a Community School District.

The Department of Education’s definition of a CDS is "a community school district (C.S.D.) is a combination of two or more municipalities and/or districts formed to build, maintain, and operate a school building or buildings to educate any or all grades. For example, a C.S.D. may be formed to build and operate a grade 7-12 school for all towns in the C.S.D. These same towns will maintain individual control (or belong to a union) for the education of their K-6 students. A community school district may also include education of all grades K-12."