JAY – There were no decisions made Tuesday at the tri-town regional school planning committee. Instead, there was open discussion on several issues, including whether the approved 10-member governance board for a consolidated system is a weighted vote.

Facilitator Bill Cumming had representatives from Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls sit in a circle at tables at the Jay Middle School Library.

Cumming said that in speaking with co-chairpersons of the planning committee, Jay School Committee Chairwoman Mary Redmond-Luce and SAD 36 Chairman Ashley O’Brien, a lot of issues and comments were raised that needed to be clarified.

When negative comments are made outside the room and in the community, they’ll cause feelings of mistrust to circulate that in the end will affect children, Cumming said.

The real issue of consolidation is that the state is facing a fiscal crisis in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and won’t have enough money to support the commitments it has made, Cumming and Jay Superintendent Robert Wall said.

The three towns need to look at what makes sense for students and the communities, Cumming said.

Some committee members said they believe they could give children more opportunities in a joint system and save taxpayers money in the long run. They’re already saving money by providing some classes and services together and sharing some transportation.

Jay resident Paul Gilbert said he grew up in Chisholm where he lives now, two streets away from Livermore Falls, and thinks of the two towns as one community. He watched Rumford and Mexico merge school systems and it turned out great, he said.

“I’d like to see it work” here, he said. “I think it would be good for the community I think it would be great for the kids.”

Redmond-Luce said she believed it would work, too, if it was done right with honesty and integrity.

When she voted to have a 10-member regional school board to oversee a new system with Jay having five members, Livermore two and Livermore Falls three, based on population, she thought it wasn’t a weighted vote.

But it is a weighted vote, she said. Jay has a population of 4,857 residents with its board’s five members having a combined vote weight of 472. Livermore has 2,202 residents and its combined votes equal 214 and Livermore Falls has 3,235 residents and its votes equal 314 votes. So if Livermore and Livermore Falls representatives vote together, they could outweigh Jay’s votes, 528 to 472.

It comes the closest to federal law concept of one person, one vote, Cumming and Wall said. Options are to rezone the communities into voting districts or to have an at-large voting method.

“We thought we were giving everyone an equal vote,” Wall said.

On the surface, with a 10-member board there would need to be six votes favoring any measure to pass it, Wall said, but upon closer look it and with weighting possible, it needs more clarification.

Some multi-town school systems that have representatives from each town serving on a board don’t factor in the weighted vote, Cumming said. Instead it is decided by the number of people voting on the issue.

The committee could look at the issue at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27, at SAD 36 Central Office in Livermore Falls if they want to revisit that vote.

Another issue clarified Tuesday is that SAD 36 has not put in an application for a new school to house middle and high school students, O’Brien said. Engineering studies were done, he said.

Building a new school would be a decision a newly elected regional school unit would have to make, O’Brien said. The final say would come from voters in the three towns.