PERU – About 75 people attended Wednesday night’s informational meeting on the proposed merger of Peru with SAD 21.

During the two-hour meeting in the school gym, Director Rick Colpitts did a 61-slide PowerPoint presentation.

He provided facts about everything from current and future state funding to what occurs should the merger be approved or not by either SAD 21 or Peru voters.

Then a panel of local school board members, SAD 21 Superintendent Thomas Ward, and Peru Superintendent John Turner fielded questions written by those in attendance before the meeting began.

While Turner wasn’t pleased with the number of people attending, he thought the questions they asked were “quite good.”

“I was really disappointed in the turnout. I was hoping this place would be packed,” he said.

Some of the questions asked and answered, were:

• What would happen to the Peru School if we merge?

During the interim period before a new elementary school could be constructed by the state, classes would continue for at least the next four years in the current facility.

• Why can’t you use our surplus money to make up the difference in the loss of state funds?

Turner said he learned Wednesday that the state would be cutting its funding to the school by $50,000 next year. He said school officials could not use the surplus balance, “because it isn’t always going to be there.”

• Why can’t we merge with SAD 43 because they have the desired cost-share formula we wanted based 75-percent on valuation and 25 percent on pupil population?

Turner said should Peru merge with SAD 43, the state would not build a new school like it has said it would do if Peru merges with SAD 21. Peru would also not have any say on the type of curriculum and programs its students could have.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link