RUMFORD – SAD 43 Superintendent Jim Hodgkin set a special workshop for Aug. 27 at Monday’s regular board meeting to discuss the financial ramifications for administrative consolidation.

“These numbers were really sobering,” he told the board. “Unless the numbers were really atrocious, I expected we’d consolidate with SAD 21.”

Initial figures from the state show such a merger could be the worst scenario now being considered by five local school districts or unions that are discussing an administrative merger required by the state’s Department of Education.

Initial figures show a merger of SAD 43 and SAD 44 as the best scenario for SAD 43 financially, although Hodgkin wasn’t sure if that consolidation would be good for SAD 44. And a consolidation of all five school systems discussing merger would be good for SAD 43.

A merger of the three major districts in the River Valley – SAD 44, SAD 43 and SAD 21 – wouldn’t be bad, he said.

But he cautioned that good or bad scenarios are based on a merger happening in school year 2007-08.

“This is just a projection. It’s as if a region were together now,” he said.

Whichever merger is chosen and approved by residents will likely not happen for at least a year.

The special workshop on Aug. 27 will give SAD 43 board members a chance to review and discuss the financial impacts of various scenarios. Hodgkin said that whatever scenario is presented to the state, Byron and Roxbury will be hit the hardest, and Rumford will also pay a higher share of taxes than it does now. Regardless of the members of a merger, Mexico will not be hurt, said Hodgkin.

Monday’s special workshop comes just a day before the five superintendents and five school board chairmen hold a second closed-door meeting, this time in Bethel, to discuss possible mergers. The first was held on Aug. 9.

Once a regional planning committee is formed, the meetings will be open to the public.

Hodgkin said separate regional planning committees must be established for each potential merger scenario. SAD 39 in Buckfield and Union 37 in Rangeley have also been meeting with SADs 21, 43, and 44.

A letter of intent – a document outlining a tentative plan of which school districts might merge – must be submitted to the state by the end of August. Multiple letters of intent would mean multiple regional planning committees.

In a merger-related matter, the board agreed to suspend continued review and updating of district policies.

“Within two years, policies as we know them won’t be the same,” he said.

Also on Monday, the board agreed to accept five Dirigo High School fourth-year Spanish language students.

Mountain Valley High School Principal Matt Gilbert said neighboring SAD 21 did not have teaching staff for the advanced language students and made the request.