Amid an ongoing budget crisis, Milford officials are considering joining a regional school unit or becoming a charter school but don’t know if it would be more financially viable for citizens.
At a Tuesday Select Board meeting, School Committee Member Samuel Clark proposed a joint committee with Selectman Nick Higgins to find if the Dr. Lewis S Libby School would be more financially feasible if it joined RSU 34.
The town has explored the option of Milford’s K-8 school, the Dr. Lewis S Libby School, joining RSU 34 before, Higgins said, but it does not have all the information needed to decide if the school should consolidate.
Clark and Higgins agreed to gather information on joining the RSU and how it would affect Milford.
The possibility of Milford consolidating or becoming a charter school emerged during Tuesday’s Select Board meeting when Select Board and School Committee members talked about the unpassed school budget that will need to be changed before the next town vote. The school is currently operating under its first proposed budget, which was partially rejected by votes in June.
Superintendent Trish Clark said she met with the superintendent and assistant superintendent of RSU 34 over a year ago to talk about a consolidation and said the town had met with the RSU within the past year to explore the option.
Information about the possible changes would need to be shared with not just elected officials, but the whole town, Trish Clark said.
“I do feel that it is important not just for the Select Board or the School Committee, but for the families of Milford that have children attending the Dr. Lewis S Libby school to understand fully what this would mean for them. By extension, the taxpayers of Milford should become well educated throughout the process should this be the direction the citizens of Milford choose to take,” Trish Clark said.
This was the first Select Board meeting since residents were meant to vote on the Milford school budget on Sept. 11 at a special town meeting. That meeting was canceled because the warrants were outside the 60-day window that Maine allows for articles that have been previously passed to carryover, Milford Manager David Dionne said.
Being beyond that window means the town will have to vote on 15 articles on the next special town meeting, despite approving nine of them in June.
The school’s attorneys, Drummond Woodsum, approved the warrant before the town canceled the meeting, Trish Clark said.
The Maine Municipal Association had “general concerns” with the articles when the town sent them to the organization the prior week, Dionne said. The town then sent the articles to its lawyers, who said they could not be voted on because they were outside of the 60-day window.
“By Sept. 11, that 60-day window had already expired. This means the July 8 warrant is no longer valid and voting on it in the September meeting would have both left the town and school exposed to challenge, audit finding or even DOE intervention,” Dionne said.
The school was not informed that the warrant violated state law until the morning of Sept. 11, Trish Clark said. Sept. 11 was 65 days from the previous vote.
The only stipulation the school was told it wasn’t in compliance with was the 10- to 45-day window to vote on a failed school budget. The school wasn’t told of any consequences for going over the 45-day threshold, Trish Clark said.
Despite Dionne saying the law requires a new budget, School Committee Member Stephen Kingsbury said the town should expect a very similar budget to the one proposed for the Sept. 11 meeting.
The previously proposed budget was for $6.2 million. The budget includes instruction and services to the Dr. Lewis S Libby School and tuition for Milford students to go to high schools in neighboring communities.
If the proposed budget passed, the town’s $24.61 mill rate would go up by roughly $1.58, Dionne said.
Voters rejected the first draft of the budget in June and approved nine of 14 articles in July. The town was set to vote on the five remaining articles at the Sept. 11 town meeting, but it was abruptly canceled that afternoon.
Residents were not able to vote on the articles between the last meeting on July 8 and the proposed Sept. 11 meeting because of a miscommunication between the Milford Select Board and the Milford School Committee.
An August town vote was canceled by the School Committee because its members couldn’t attend the vote, Higgins said.
But multiple committee members at Tuesday’s meeting said they could’ve held the meeting and didn’t tell the town to cancel it. The school was not informed about the meeting or asked about the date, and only learned about it when the town posted about its cancellation on social media, Trish Clark said.
A similar misunderstanding between the two boards has led to $801,761.51 in state funding for the school to be held by the town.
The funding is given to the town monthly from the state and held in an account before being given to the school for use. The School Committee asked for the funds to be released to them quarterly instead of monthly, Dionne and Higgins said, but committee members asked the town to release the funds for use at Tuesday’s meeting.
“When we met last we all had an approved budget, and we said they were going to be quarterly payments. September was the end of a quarter. There’s been no payments to the school, and there’s been, and I agree 100 percent, there’s been all of this back and forth mess that’s not necessary,” Julie Cote, finance director for the school, said.
Sept. 30 is the end of the quarter and the funds will be released then, Dionne said.
Both School Committee members and Selectmen agreed to interact more clearly and avoid posting on social media as a way to work together and avoid misunderstandings.
The two bodies also agreed to meet on Sept. 25 in the Dr. Lewis S Libby School at 6 p.m. for a budget workshop on the school warrant.
A date has not been set for the next town vote.
