POLAND – The Union 29 school merger panel Wednesday night confronted the gorilla that has been sitting in its midst the past six weeks: Who is going to pay what?

It began when four members of the Minot delegation, Rhonda Irish, Tina Kelly, Yvette Murray and Eda Tripp, held out their fists thumbs downward to Dana Lee’s call for a consensus vote on a plan for Mechanic Falls, Minot and Poland to pool their school properties and debts as part of a new single school unit.

“Minot would be picking up a lot of debt. We have no debt,” Tripp said.

The impasse prompted Union 29 business manager Rick Kusturin to turn the discussion to how the three towns share costs, now limited to the central administrative office, and the various scenarios for how the cost-sharing formula might be altered to equalize the burden on all three communities once they become a single school unit.

Kusturin showed that expanding the current formula, weighted 60 percent on the number of students from each town and 40 percent on each town’s property valuation, would create a cost shift that would strongly favor Poland.

If applied to the three towns’ current $8.7 million budget, Poland would see a savings of about $566,000 while Mechanic Falls and Minot would see increases of $389,000 and $177,000, respectively.

“Such a shift will not fly,” Kusturin said.

He demonstrated that the cost shift diminishes to zero as the formula is weighted more toward town property value and less on number of pupils.

“The cost-sharing formula is key. If we can settle that, the rest will go smoothly,” Lee said.

Members of the full panel agreed that two members from each town will develop recommendations on an adjusted cost-sharing formula, with an eye to the overall costs and benefits that the merger offers all three towns, and report back at next Wednesday’s meeting.

Panel members saw the possibility that another bone of contention, the tuition contracts for Mechanic Falls and Minot to send students to the Poland Regional High School, could certainly become a lot less contentious and perhaps vanish altogether under a cost-sharing formula fair and palatable to taxpayers in all three towns.

The tuition contract, which caps what Mechanic Falls and Minot pay Poland at the state average high school per pupil cost, has been seen as unfair to Poland since the per pupil cost at Poland is higher than state average.

Poland School Committee member Norm Davis noted that Poland’s per pupil cost is now about $545 higher per tuitioned student than state average, and this is not only a lot less than what many believe it to be, but this number is expected to decrease if cost-saving measures proposed by school Superintendent Dennis Duquette are implemented.

Duquette’s suggestions for cost-saving measures total somewhat over half a million dollars.

Poland member Faye Luppi said that in theory the rationale for the tuition contracts should cease once the three towns join as a regional school unit.

“The three towns will own the building and residents of all three towns will have a say in its budget,” Luppi explained.

Duquette reported that the state Department of Education has approved all three sections of the school reorganization plan that the committee has submitted to date. These sections establish a governance framework for the proposed new regional school unit and how the budget for its first school year will be handled.

The reorganization planning committee will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Poland Regional High School library to discuss a cost sharing formula, the disposition of property and debts, and the cost savings the new school system could realize.