AOS 93 Business Manger Peter Nielsen explains a sample budget to the AOS 93 board on Tuesday, March 12. Progress in the plans of member boards to disassemble AOS 93 would be aboutcost neutral, by his calculations, and free up adminsitrative time and attention. (Elizabeth Walztoni photo)
The AOS 93 Board discussed updates on restructuring the AOS, joining an Educational Service Center, and hiring a replacement for Superintendent Lynsey Johnston in advance of her June departure at its Tuesday, March 12 meeting.
Member towns began considering options for restructuring AOS 93 last April. Administrators have said the structure, in which each school is its own district contracting services through the central office, is outdated and has a number of operational redundancies.
Towns voted against changes to school setups and major restructuring, instead deciding on modifications limited to the administrative level.
Johnston said March 12 that the Great Salt Bay Consolidated School District, which consists of Bremen, Damariscotta, and Newcastle, is moving ahead to convert into an RSU following favorable votes by all member boards.
If the filing is approved by the Maine Department of Education, the four committees involved in operating it will condense into one K-12 governing board. Currently, the CSD contains one committee for K-8 operations at the school and one for each of the three towns to separately budget for secondary education expenses.
Johnston said restructuring committees at the town level should be formed this month to develop a draft of a new interlocal agreement and prepare for filing the change with the state. A June referendum vote at annual town meetings this year could have an RSU in place by July.
Members then intend to initiate withdrawal from AOS 93 for GSB to hire its own superintendent and special education director. Johnston said this step will likely come after AOS 93 completes the process of becoming an Educational Service Center, which is expected to take place this July or next.
The Educational Service Center change is an update to structure with the state that allows schools to cost-share service contracts.
Notice is being filed with the state and an interlocal agreement draft is being developed for school boards to tentatively review in April and vote on in May, according to Johnston.
She suggested adjustments to cost-sharing agreements divided between towns based on use rather than student population or census count, as she said many of the central office’s responsibilities take the same amount of time for each school.
All those ideas are drafts for board discussion at this point, Johnston said.
AOS Business Manager Peter Nielsen presented a mock budget of this year’s numbers if the Educational Service Center conversion was made and the administrative costs reshuffled. In his estimation, the change would be basically cost neutral, and freeing up administrative time by reducing the operational redundancies would benefit schools.
During budget conversations, Jefferson representative Walter Greene-Morse asked how the central office intended to handle the recent discovery that GSB had not been paying for the central office IT director role for 10 years.
Nielsen said the records show that when the role was created about 15 years ago, the GSB IT director was helping the central office so often that the other towns were asked to contribute salary to the part-time position. The last written agreement he could find was from 2013, Nielsen said. The calculation formula in the spreadsheets he inherited was not updated, according to Nielsen.
The position is part time and earns $20,000 a year. Nielsen said GSB owes $60,000 to the four towns together from the past decade.
He and auditor Fred Brewer recommended GSB pay back the other towns for the last three fiscal years, for which audits are not yet complete.
“There are a lot of inequities in a shared system,” Nielsen said. “We found one.”
He and Brewer said going back any further would be complicated because it was not a dollar-for-dollar comparison. Brewer said he has seen similar situations before and found it hard to remedy while figuring out the reality of past transactions.
Greene-Morse said the suggestion was “not acceptable at all.”
“Jefferson wants its $24,000,” he said.
Johnston will seek legal counsel on what entity is responsible for next steps.
The board also heard an update on the superintendent search and selection process. Search committee heads Christian Cotz and Betsy Ball presented their recommendation for layout of the search committee.
Their proposal has one representative each GSB towns and two from all other towns, except for Jefferson, which has three. A representative from Lincoln Academy and the central office would serve in an advisory capacity but have no vote.
Members of that committee will vote with a simple majority formula on which candidate to recommend that board hires.
After lengthy disagreement between Greene-Morse and the rest of the board about this structure, the board appointed the search committee as recommended with his opposition. Greene-Morse disagreed with how much weight the formula gave to Jefferson and the inclusion of a Lincoln Academy advisor.
He also said the board was not following a search committee precedent from previous administrative hiring processes.
Ball, Cotz, and board Chair Sam Belknap said they believed they had the “right people” on the board to make a decision together and did not expect it to be a contentious process.
Belknap also noted previous boards had not solidified a search process precedent by adopting a policy.
Members also thanked Nobleboro representative Mike Ward for his 12 years of service on the school committee. His term expires next week and he is not seeking reelection. Matt Benner voted in his place at the March 12 meeting.
In other business, the board accepted its fiscal year 2022 audit from Brewer. Members unanimously approved with no discussion a policy for administration in the absence of policy and another governing public participation at board meetings.
The AOS 93 Board next meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 9 in the AOS 93 central office and online. For more information, go to aos93.org.
