MINOT – The School Committee took a step Tuesday night to get a $55,000 loan to pay for the school’s new well filtration system.

The committee authorized Superintendent Nina Schlikin to send a letter to the selectmen asking them to secure the money from the Maine Bond Bank.

The $55,000 will come from the state’s revolving renovation program; the town would have to repay $22,000.

Selectmen have until the first of September to reserve the $55,000 and will have to set a referendum vote for November asking residents for permission to come up with the $22,000 local match.

Gordon Murray, Union 29’s director of operations, explained that this will wrap up funding for the well and the filtration system, together with the 24-by-24-foot building to house the filtration system.

The total cost for the entire project is estimated at a little more than $78,000, $24,000 of which has been expended.

Murray also told the committee that bids for Union 29’s new office building came in over budget, so Minot has to decide whether it will try to raise additional money to secure a 16 percent ownership of the project or commit the same amount of money to the project as originally planned and take a smaller percentage ownership of the new building.

The committee told Murray that it would opt for accepting a smaller percentage of ownership rather than returning to town meeting voters to increase Minot’s share. The committee’s consensus was that this would unnecessarily delay the project and it was important for Poland to go ahead with the building project as soon as possible.

Murray commended maintenance workers at the Minot Consolidated School for their work clearing up the mold problem in the seven classrooms. He said the final cost was $11,600, considerably less than the original $15,000 estimate. He reported that the carpeting that could be salvaged had been saved, rooms where the carpeting couldn’t be saved had been tiled, and the room that had carpet over asbestos had been properly stripped of the moldy carpet and the asbestos tiling.

Board member Chris Woodford noted that the brush piles next to the school were gone, with thanks to Road Manager Arlan Saunders and Rick Nichols, who held to his original estimate of the cost despite the extra time it took.

Woodford commended the volunteer effort which, last weekend, put up the new playground. He said the new playground will be ready for the first day of school.

Schlikin advised the committee she was going to declare the two plastic slides in the old playground as surplus property and would post a notice that sealed bids may be submitted by anyone wishing to put the slides to good use.

Principal Margaret Pitts reported that 285 students are enrolled for the fall term, 10 fewer than last year. The first grade classes appear to have lost a few members, and as matters stand, enrollment stands at nine pupils in one classroom and 11 in the other.

Ann Palmer was appointed elementary special education teacher, Allison Haskell as middle school special education teacher, Sara Johnson as art and gifted-and-talented teacher, and Mary Snell as an educational technician in special education. Pitts reported that the staff is complete with the exception of a speech and language person.