LIVERMORE FALLS – Consultants in school financing and buildings gave regional school planning committees some insight Tuesday into how to develop a cost-sharing formula and what goes into a facility assessment.

Those components are important to developing a proposed consolidated school system for the towns of Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls, state consultants said.

The planning committee is scheduled to meet from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 6, at the Jay High School Library to develop a cost-sharing formula, an administrative structure, curriculum and co-curricular aspects of a plan to merge the school systems.

The final plan is expected to go before voters in all three towns on Jan. 30, 2009.

Facilitator and retired Superintendent Jake Clockedile gave members several scenarios to use as options.

The committee is “free to create” whatever cost sharing agreement works for the communities, he said.

One of his goals, Clockedile said, was to create the least amount of cost shifting, but a lot of the information is unknown at this time. The subsidies for next year are unknown, he said, the information needed to make next year’s budget are unknown and he doesn’t know what the Legislature will do when it reconvenes in January.

In most of the scenarios Jay’s share of the additional local funds hovered around 72 percent, while Livermore and Livermore Falls were 13 to 14 percent.

Another option to work into the funding formula would be to have SAD 36 towns cover the local debt for the Livermore Elementary School and Jay to cover its overage of state’s essential programs and services model for a period of time such as three years.

School leaders from Jay and SAD 36 requested a facilities assessment from the Department of Education in April to determine the best use of school buildings in the three towns.

State facility consultant Mike McCormick said he received a hard copy of requested information from SAD 36 last Thursday and is waiting to get Jay’s information to move forward.

There are nine objectives that his team will look at. They include: allocation of space to Maine standards for learning environments; condition of space and appropriateness of space under national standards; student demographic data, including trends of enrollment and birth rates; cost of annual maintenance and operations; cost of deferred work; cost of future capital renewals; current and possible future debt service; potential savings that may be achieved as a result of reorganization; and opportunities for cost avoidance.

Statewide there is about $2 billion in identified deferred work in school buildings, McCormick said. The state doesn’t have the capacity to deal with all the facility needs, he said.

Both Jay and SAD 36 have deferred work that should have been done, he added. SAD 36 has an aging high and middle school while Jay a middle school built in the late 1990s.

LIVERMORE FALLS – Consultants in school financing and buildings gave regional school planning committees some insight Tuesday into how to develop a cost-sharing formula and what goes into a facility assessment.

Those components are important to developing a proposed consolidated school system for the towns of Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls, state consultants said.

The planning committee is scheduled to meet from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 6, at the Jay High School Library to develop a cost-sharing formula, an administrative structure, curriculum and co-curricular aspects of a plan to merge the school systems.

The final plan is expected to go before voters in all three towns on Jan. 30, 2009.

Facilitator and retired Superintendent Jake Clockedile gave members several scenarios to use as options.

The committee is “free to create” whatever cost sharing agreement works for the communities, he said.

One of his goals, Clockedile said, was to create the least amount of cost shifting, but a lot of the information is unknown at this time. The subsidies for next year are unknown, he said, the information needed to make next year’s budget are unknown and he doesn’t know what the Legislature will do when it reconvenes in January.

In most of the scenarios Jay’s share of the additional local funds hovered around 72 percent, while Livermore and Livermore Falls were 13 to 14 percent.

Another option to work into the funding formula would be to have SAD 36 towns cover the local debt for the Livermore Elementary School and Jay to cover its overage of state’s essential programs and services model for a period of time such as three years.

School leaders from Jay and SAD 36 requested a facilities assessment from the Department of Education in April to determine the best use of school buildings in the three towns.

State facility consultant Mike McCormick said he received a hard copy of requested information from SAD 36 last Thursday and is waiting to get Jay’s information to move forward.

There are nine objectives that his team will look at. They include: allocation of space to Maine standards for learning environments; condition of space and appropriateness of space under national standards; student demographic data, including trends of enrollment and birth rates; cost of annual maintenance and operations; cost of deferred work; cost of future capital renewals; current and possible future debt service; potential savings that may be achieved as a result of reorganization; and opportunities for cost avoidance.

Statewide there is about $2 billion in identified deferred work in school buildings, McCormick said. The state doesn’t have the capacity to deal with all the facility needs, he said.

Both Jay and SAD 36 have deferred work that should have been done, he added. SAD 36 has an aging high and middle school while Jay a middle school built in the late 1990s.