POLAND – After more than a year of trying to find a permanent home, School Union 29 administrative staff may be clearing its last hurdle this week.

School committees from Poland, Mechanic Falls and Minot, which make up Union 29, will meet Tuesday to sign an agreement that spells out the building and financing of the union’s administrative office. The joint school committee meeting, one of four during the year, will start at 7 p.m. and be held at the Minot Consolidated School.

“It should be a win-win situation,” said Poland School Committee Chairman Ike Levine. “The beauty of designing from scratch is that, although there may be less space, it will be incredibly efficient space.”

Currently, the administrative staff is renting the former restaurant The Railway Station on Maple Street in Mechanic Falls for $2,000 a month, said Assistant Superintendent Bill Doughty. The lease option goes through March 2005, as officials do not anticipate new office construction to be complete by the new school year in September, said Doughty.

School administrators spent much of recent months hammering out the inter-local agreement that breaks down ownership and financing among the three towns.

The town of Poland will issue the $250,000 bond, and all three towns will pay down the debt through Poland. Poland will pay $142,250, Mechanic Falls will pay $57,000, and Minot will pay $50,750, according to information presented at a Mechanic Falls budget hearing in April.

The Union administrative staff will share its space with Poland’s bus and dispatch staff. A common kitchen, bathroom, conference room, plumbing and heating systems will eliminate duplicate construction costs, said Doughty.

After 10 years and the bond retires, Poland will own 66.23 percent of the total 4,100-square-foot space. Mechanic Falls will own 17.87 percent, and Minot will own 15.91 percent. Of that new building, 708 square feet is designated for Poland Bus Dispatch operation, 352 square feet is shared space between the union and town of Poland, and 3,027 square feet is actual Union 29 office space.

Voters from each town questioned the adequacy of the approximately 3,000-square-foot office space, which was about half of the Elm Street space. Doughty noted that the Elm Street space had several unusable and inefficient areas. In addition, administrative staff plans to convert many of its paper files into digital form to decrease the need for space, said Doughty.

The ongoing operating costs will be divided according to the union’s cost-sharing formula based on total town valuations and student populations. Poland’s share is 56.9 percent, Mechanic Falls is 22.8 percent, and Minot is 20.3 percent. That breakdown has stayed stable over the past six years but does fluctuate some according to changes in valuations and population, said Levine.

The school union will receive state subsidies until 2008 at no more than $22,000 a year, depending on actual costs and interest rates and other state funding formula factors, said Doughty.

Voters from each town at their respective town meetings in March, April and May gave their school committees authority to sign the office construction agreement. The new office space will be part of Poland’s public works construction project on Aggregate Road. The school union office portion will have to meet the $250,000 budget approved by voters a year ago.

School officials originally planned to purchase the union’s formerly rented space on Elm Street in Mechanic Falls. However, the discovery of mold quashed the deal.

Administrators then looked at several local properties, including The Rail Station, but could find nothing that would come under the $250,000 price tag after renovations and upgrades. School officials had at one time considered building office space on the same property as the Poland Community School, said Levine.

In the meantime, Poland had started its public works construction project for salt storage, bus shed, and bus dispatch center. Poland voters approved a $2 million bond last year to fund the project, said Poland Town Manager Richard Chick.

The Poland municipal project, which already has received state approval for building and currently is under construction, then expanded to include the Union 29 office on the opposite side of Aggregate Road.