A bill that would allow Alna and Westport Island to decide if they want to maintain school choice was shot down in committee April 13. The original sponsor of the bill, State Rep. Bruce MacDonald (D-Boothbay), said he was not surprised at the outcome.
“The legislature is often leery of doing something like this for just two towns,” said MacDonald on April 25. “For now it’s dead but I have a suspicion people had no idea how unique a position these towns were in when they voted for the RSU.”
MacDonald said a fellow lawmaker made the observation that there was no “clear way out of the RSU once you were in.” If passed, the law would allow towns to reconsider, by a vote at a town meeting, if residents wished to continue a choice policy for their students.
Currently RSU 12 is obligated by statute to pay the out-of-district tuition costs for Alna students, estimated at $232,000 by Alna resident Doug Baston in a 2010 letter to Sen. Justin Alfond (D-Portland).
Baston wrote in the letter that, “we have considerable anecdotal evidence that families are moving to Alna, and perhaps Westport, simply to avail themselves of our open checkbook.”
The subsequent drain on operating revenue for RSU 12 has resulted, wrote Baston, in an increased assessment on district towns including an increase of $18,000 in Alna. Although the bill was effectively killed in committee, a variation may become part of a larger bill with the working title of “An Act to Amend School Consolidation.”
