LIVERMORE FALLS – The SAD 36 board chairman has reached out to Jay school leaders to find more ways for the two systems to provide better programming for students and cost savings to taxpayers.

SAD 36 Chairman Ashley O’Brien sent a letter to Jay School Committee Chairman Clint Brooks asking him to form a board committee, as SAD 36 has done, to explore collaboration options.

When SAD 36 committees were formed this year, two directors, Denise Rodzen and O’Brien were assigned to be on the SAD 36-Jay Collaboration Committee.

Jay has a $10.5 million school operating budget and SAD 36 – which teaches kids from here and Livermore – has about an $8.5 million operating budget.

Over the past three years, SAD 36 has considerably expanded programming while, at the same time, come in under the state’s essential programs and services formula and actually lowered the assessment to its communities by more than 4 mills, or $4 per $1,000 of property valuation, O’Brien said.

“The fact that the administration and the board both committed to collaboration with others is in no small way contributing to our ability to offer increased services while realizing substantial cost savings,” O’Brien said.

SAD 36 already shares services with the Winthrop School Department, including a transportation director, building maintenance director and food service director, which has provided cost savings and increased students’ meal participation, O’Brien said.

“Go to the bottom line and it’s savings,” he said.

Jay and SAD 36 have shared education services and some bus transportation and O’Brien said he’d like to see more sharing.

“We need a forum for discussion and I think we’ll think of a number of things together,” O’Brien said.

The systems are not talking consolidation, he said, just working together.

“You don’t start with a giant step and create baby steps after,” he said.

Brooks said that he gave O’Brien’s letter inviting members of the Jay School Committee to meet with SAD 36 directors to exchange thoughts and dialogue on the potential for sharing the delivery of educational services to “our students on a greater cooperative basis” to committee members at their meeting Sept. 14, requesting reaction and feedback.

“I personally am very interested in this concept, but need to return a collective response rather than my own individual one,” Brooks said.

“Personally, I believe that if we are going to continue to deliver the quality of education that parents from our towns have come to expect, then we will be obligated to explore every avenue which will make this a fiscal reality,” Brooks said. “Both Jay and SAD 36 face consequential budgetary issues and it is not too soon to seek common solutions which could stabilize the future of our educational endeavors.”