RUMFORD – Voters in SADs 43, 21 and 39, and the town of Hanover will decide Nov. 4 on whether to consolidate, organizers of the plan agreed Tuesday night.

Nearly all of the issues have been worked out, and a tentative timeline for submission of a plan to the state, and a vote by people in the 12 towns involved, were nailed down at a meeting at Mountain Valley High School.

Those towns include Canton, Carthage, Dixfield and Peru in SAD 21, Buckfield, Hartford and Sumner in SAD 39, Byron, Mexico, Roxbury and Rumford in SAD 43, and Hanover.

Regardless of final details, SAD 43 representative Betty Barrett said, “We will have to be working on a budget by February and March.”

The two dozen members of the Reorganizational Planning Committee agreed that voters will decide whether to create a new regional school system during the Nov. 4 presidential election. They also agreed that the 17 representatives to a new regional school board will be elected at the same time.

Virtually all agreed that all properties owned by the three school districts will fall under the ownership of the new consolidated system with the exception of the SAD 43 central office in Mexico, which would revert to the town.

A new central office would likely be in Dixfield.

By late Tuesday, they hadn’t determined what the next course of action would be if voters in one or more of the districts opposed consolidating.

While SAD 21 Superintendent Tom Ward believes the Reorganizational Planning Committee would have to reconvene, SAD 39 Superintendent Rick Colpitts believes it would be up to individual school boards to convene and work toward the formation of another regional school system.

SAD 43 Superintendent Jim Hodgkin said districts that want to merge must be contiguous.

The question of what happens if voters reject the merger will likely be addressed by the Portland law firm of Drummond and Woodsum, the firm that regularly works with school law.

They will also review the question of who or what entity would receive school district property if it isn’t needed.

The committee agreed to accept the assets, except the SAD 43 central office, and if any other properties must be disposed of within five years, it would revert to the towns in the original district. That will be reviewed by lawyers.

The remainder of the timeline includes: send the finalized plan to the districts’ individual school boards in May; submit the plan to the Department of Education commissioner in June; hold a joint meeting of the boards from the three districts in October when an interim superintendent would be appointed; appoint a permanent superintendent in January; and, development a three-district budget in February and March.

Formation of new school districts was mandated by an act of the Legislature.