To the Editor:
Wiscasset voters will have a series of choices they can make if they vote to leave RSU 12 Nov. 5. The actual cost savings of these choices is significant in some cases and involves changes as to how and where we educate our children. The most important fact is that we take back budget control in all cases.
The choices below are the most obvious, but other options and variations are available.
Option 1: The Wiscasset Withdrawal Committee’s consultants built a budget on going back to the original structure with all three buildings open and a large central staff with a proposed budget with an increase of $1.4 million more than we pay today.
This is not an acceptable or practical solution. We have lost over 17 percent of our students since joining the RSU and now have 57 percent less students than at our peak. Wiscasset schools have only 588 students in a system built to accommodate 1450.
Option 2: Close the middle school building per the 2008 Wiscasset School Board study and split the students between the primary and high school buildings. The 2008 savings was projected at $1 million per year, but an updated study by one of our selectmen pegged it closer to $1.25 million.
This virtually pays for any increase in our expense projected above, but does require a larger central staff. A high school with all the required curriculum demands the most central staff with a dedicated superintendent, curriculum coordinator, computer support, finance, administrative assistant, etc.
Option 3: Close the high school and tuition out grades 9-12 and consolidate K-8 in the high school building. This was studied and recommended by the consultants in 2008, but the majority of school board members at that time wouldn’t support that option.
This saves the most money with the closure of two buildings and projected savings of over $2 million dollars on the conservative side. It also addresses the problem of matching the student’s needs to an appropriate school, which Wiscasset can’t meet now due to low student count. In this scenario, a large central staff is not required because there is no high school to develop the entire curriculum required by law.
Most K-8 school systems have a combination superintendent/principal. This works well and is a well tested structure. Further cost savings are possible as the consolidation expense eases after the move to one building.
Option 4: Choose any of the above scenarios and join an Alternative Organizational Structure (AOS). This is what Wiscasset Educational Research Panel proposed initially. This structure has a shared central office for individual school systems and we would pay a percentage of the cost based on student count.
In this structure, the AOS calculated a total cost for the shared central office of $149,539, which is substantially less than the cost for option 1 of over $600,000 plus benefits.
The main thing to realize is that Wiscasset has a lot of different options that save money, right size our school buildings and increase the educational opportunities for our children. The side benefit is that it makes our town much more desirable due to lower taxes and better educational opportunities. This also puts the decisions back into the hands of the voters and parents. Everyone wins in this scenario.
Please remember if you voted in the last gubernatorial election, you must get out and vote in November to leave the RSU. This is the final and most important vote. If we don’t have the minimum number of 833 voters turnout, the decision to withdraw from the RSU is moot because we didn’t have enough ballots cast.
Over the last two years, a lot of time and work has been put into bringing back control by dedicated members of WERP, along with a lot of your neighbors.
