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Jay schools

Elementary School: Built in 1964, addition in 1985; 40,665 square feet

Middle School: Built in 1996, 52,850 square feet and gymnasium area 35,000 square feet.

High School: Built in 1965, 84,000 square feet

SAD 36 schools

Livermore Elementary School: Built in 1964, renovated with 37,000-square-foot addition in 2000; 47,500 square feet overall.

Livermore Falls Middle School: Built in 1916, gymnasium built in 1953, cafeteria/library section built in 1982; 49,600 square feet overall.

Livermore Falls High School: Built in 1967, industrial arts wing added on in 1982; 70,845 square feet overall.

School merger plan tabled
Proposal will be reworded

LIVERMORE FALLS – Members of the three-town regional school planning committee unanimously voted Monday to table a motion to accept Jay and SAD 36 school properties as listed with three exceptions into a regionalization plan.

The panel OK’d the motion to table the proposal for a week so it can be reworded.

A motion to have the local indebtedness for the Livermore Elementary School to be included in the new Regional School Unit 40 was withdrawn until exact numbers could be seen by the planning committee. Jay school representatives verbally opposed the plan that would have Jay residents sharing in nearly $2.8 million of debt by the time the merger would take place if approved by voters, with that town picking up about 70 percent of the debt, to pay for the Livermore school.

Voters in Livermore and Livermore Falls voted to fund a new school and pay for it themselves after numerous unsuccessful tries to have the state participate in funding a needed new school.

Jay also has debt of $4.7 million for the middle school but it was built with state participation and there is no more money owed by the town.

The new school reorganization law includes state participating debt but not local debt unless it is negotiated into the new school plan.

All of SAD 36 properties owned by the district are considered school property but the Jay School Department is a department of the town of Jay with several properties having both school and community use.

SAD 36 properties include high and middle schools, both in need of replacement but have a 10-year work plan underway to keep them viable and address immediate code issues, a new elementary school and a newly renovated grammar school that now serves as central office, alternative education, adult education and Head Start.

All three schools are either over student capacity or near it. Athletic fields and appropriate land also go with the package.

A plan to build a new junior-senior high school and new athletic fields was under way until the state halted all new construction due to the statewide school consolidation proposal.

A map highlighting what is considered Jay property used mainly by the schools was presented and it included the elementary, middle and high schools, athletic fields and appropriate land.

Both the middle and high schools have space for more capacity with the elementary school near capacity.

The exceptions to Jay’s property to be joined into an regional school unit are the tennis courts, community building and the bus garage. Recreation land behind the high school outside of the athletic fields does not fall into school property, according to the map, and neither does the town-owned Head Start building.