JAY – A regional school planning committee voted unanimously Tuesday to submit a draft plan that would unite Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls into one school system to legal counsel for review, school superintendents said Wednesday.

Jay Superintendent Robert Wall said he suggested the planning committee use the same attorney to look at the consolidation plan and look at the best interest for both systems.

“We feel the committee has done the job that needs to be done to present to the voters in each town a plan that will serve all students,” Wall said. “This process is a legal review to look at the (regional school unit) law to see if the committee’s plan meets the criteria established by the state.”

After attorneys at the Drummond Woodsum law firm review the document, it will be sent back to the regional planning committee, SAD 36 Superintendent Terry Despres said.

“We did emphasize that the attachments to the plan need to be reviewed by the regional planning committee before being sent to the state because the contents of the attachments provide clear and articulated agreements relative to financial and operational details,” Wall said.

From there the plan would go back to the individual school boards of the two school systems to vote to submit it to the Maine Department of Education, Despres said.

Once it is approved by the state, public information meetings will be set up, Wall said.

A referendum vote in each town will be held in January 2009 for voters to consider the proposed plan.

If the plan is not approved by a collective tally of votes in each town, then the individual school boards in each system could instruct the regional planning committee to reunite to reconsider the plan with the same partner or it could instruct their planning members to look at different partners, Despres said.

According to the draft reorganizational plan, the school boards of each existing system will meet jointly and determine if a new process to form a regional unit will be initiated with the same or new members.

If the plan is approved by voters, the respective school boards of the existing systems shall meet jointly to appoint a Regional School Unit No. 40 Transitional Team and the planning committee will dissolve. The transitional team would be made up of both superintendents and Jay school Business Manager Stacie Everett, which are nonvoting members; existing school board chairpersons; representatives of the selectmen of Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls; and others.

Each school district will still build a school budget for next year starting July 1, 2009. Those two budgets would be submitted to the transition team and that team would build a joint budget from them, Despres said.

The team would not be able to propose cutting staff or closing schools as outlined in the law, but it could find savings in other locations in the budget, he said.

The transition team would also have the right to do job assignments, he added, and will determine how the two superintendents and business manager would be used in the system, he said.

Both superintendents plan to present a copy of the draft plan to their school boards Thursday, Oct. 3. The Jay School Committee meeting begins at 6 p.m. at the Jay Middle School, and the SAD 36 Board of Directors meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Cedar Street Learning Complex.