PERU – Voters in Peru and the SAD 21 towns of Canton, Carthage and Dixfield will have to wait a while longer before having the final say on a proposed merger.

That consensus came Thursday evening after directors from both Peru and SAD 21 school districts met to figure out where they stood in the year-long process.

Peru School Committee members believed they were nearing the end of negotiations after voting Aug. 11 to petition Maine Department of Education Commissioner Susan A. Gendron for an equitable cost-share ratio.

That was until Aug. 15 when Peru School’s attorney, Drummond, Woodsum and MacMahon of Portland, told Superintendent John Turner that if he submitted the petition, SAD 21 officials would withdraw previously agreed-upon items pertinent to the merger. The Portland firm is also SAD 21’s attorney.

Some of those agreements included a joint school construction project to be located on Peru’s side of the Androscoggin River that separates Peru from Dixfield, preservation of collective bargaining rights, and grandfathering Peru secondary students attending Mountain Valley High School in Rumford or another high school as of 2004.

Other agreements included:

• Creating a 15-member SAD 21 school board consisting of four Peru directors, two from Carthage, three from Canton and six from Dixfield.

• Calculating the state subsidy for fiscal year 2004-05 as if Peru was a member of SAD 21 in such base year.

• Transferring, as of July 1, 2004, all of Peru School’s real and personal property and cash and accounts to SAD 21.

• Commencing with the 2004-05 academic year, SAD 21 would bus the grandfathered Peru students to MVHS and St. Athanasius and St. John Elementary School in Rumford with the latter subject to available bus capacity.

“When we left off last (school) year, there was no agreement on funding, but we had all agreed on these things,” Turner said.

Speaking on behalf of SAD 21 directors, new Superintendent Thomas Ward said those previously-agreed upon items were contingent on merging with a cost-share ratio based 100 percent on valuation.

If the merger goes forward, “it must be at 100 percent valuation; it wasn’t an agreement to leave it up to the commissioner” to decide on a funding formula, Ward said.

“If you agree to 100 percent or the commissioner comes back with 100 percent, then we need to talk details. We came here united on 100 percent or you have to go it on your own,” he added.

Peru Director Richard Colpitts agreed with Ward to a point.

“We would like to see (the merger) work, but we don’t want to put something to our community that they’ll just reject,” Colpitts said. “We’re closer now to a merging possibility and I think we can work out the issues.”

He said that Peru directors realized that the 100-percent cost-share ratio would negatively impact Peru taxpayers and that anything less than 100 percent would significantly impact SAD 21 taxpayers.

“So we petitioned the commissioner. Sue Gendron is very eager to see this merger work. I would hate to see us come to a stalemate where the funding issue is going to end our conversation and I would hate to put forward to our voters an agreement that I know would be condemned,” Colpitts added.

After breaking for an executive session to discuss contractual issues, SAD 21 officials agreed to wait before making further decisions.

Both boards agreed to meet separately with Gendron, sharing with her their sides of the funding disagreement, before reconvening another joint meeting.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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