RUMFORD – The committee planning a merger of three neighboring school districts agreed to form a 17-member governing board with at least one representative from each town involved.

The 30-member Reorganizational Planning Committee met Tuesday night at Mountain Valley High School as part of its months-long intent to set up guidelines and to work through issues affecting the potential merger of SAD 43 in Rumford, SAD 21 in Dixfield, and SAD 39 in Buckfield.

The new school board that would govern all three districts, and the independent town of Hanover, allocates three representatives to Rumford, the town with the largest population, two each to Mexico, Dixfield and Buckfield, and one each to Byron, Canton, Carthage, Hanover, Hartford, Peru, Roxbury and Sumner.

Individual votes would also have differing weights, based on population, with Rumford having the highest, at 10.8 percent, followed by Peru, at 7.8 percent, Mexico, at 7.4 percent, and Dixfield, at 6.5 percent, ranging down to Hanover and Byron with 1.6 percent and .6 percent, respectively.

The total number of weighted votes would be 19,780, which is the total number of people living in the 12 towns of the new Regional School Unit.

Reorganizational Planning Committee members will likely agree to update the weighting based on the population figures provided by the Department of Education every five years. This means that the number of representatives from a particular district or town could go up or down as population fluctuations change.

Rules that will guide what portion of the committee must attend a meeting that allows business to be conducted will likely be provided by state statute, said SAD 39 Superintendent Rick Colpitts, or a new Regional School Unit board could establish a new policy.

The Reorganizational Planning Committee also agreed to establish staggered terms for members elected to the the first Regional School Unit board. Five members, from Rumford, Mexico, Sumner, Buckfield and Canton, would serve for one year; six members, from Rumford, Roxbury, Byron, Buckfield, Dixfield and Canton, would serve for two years; and six members from Hanover, Rumford, Mexico, Hartford, Peru and Carthage would serve for three years. All subsequent terms would be for three years.

Under the weighted formula, no one district would have a majority vote on its own.

Questions not yet answered for the governance of a new so-called super district include whether individual districts would also have local school committees.

SAD 43 Superintendent Jim Hodgkin said the state legislature is currently grappling with the role and powers of local school committees under new Regional School Units.

Tom Ward, superintendent of SAD 21, suggested that the committee look at the development of a new Regional School Unit as a district with about 3,000 students, such as a merger of SAD 21, SAD 43, and SAD 39 would produce.

“Such a district would have a board, one office and one superintendent. We need to get that mindset,” he said.

The Reorganizational Planning Committee decided to focus on a cost sharing formula for its next meeting set for 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, at Dirigo High School in Dixfield. Between now and that meeting, the three co-chairmen, superintendents and two representatives from each of the three districts will meet to discuss recommendations. Some members of this subgroup will meet with Department of Education representative Jim Rier prior to the Feb. 28 meeting.