FARMINGTON – The school reorganization process could work if done right, but so far it hasn’t been, several superintendents said Friday.

What school officials would like is for the state to give them a target for education efficiencies and let local people make the decisions to meet the target, SAD 36 Superintendent Terry Despres said Friday, during an update on school consolidation at a Western Maine Legislative Caucus.

Some superintendents would even like to see the current reorganization law canned and a new one implemented that would give them opportunities to work together with other systems at their own pace to provide students with the best educational offerings at an affordable cost to taxpayers.

Such a plan was passed by legislators three years ago but never was implemented, Despres said.

School leaders from northern Androscoggin and Franklin counties said they know that the current trend of declining student enrollment and education funding means they need to work together. They were already doing that before the state reorganization law was passed.

Bottom line – the current process is not working and has created hate and discontent between communities, SAD 58 Superintendent Quenten Clark said.

A major point they all made is that a law that was supposed to save local taxpayers money, will provide no savings for at least the first three years of consolidation.

While the towns in SAD 9, SAD 58 and Coplin and Highland plantations have a state-approved plan ready to go to voters Nov. 4, the two larger school district boards representing 14 of the 16 communities have already voted not to support it.

In fact, Clark said he doesn’t believe the plan has a “chance in hell of getting voted in.”

Instead, he hopes it is voted down. Then SAD 58, which serves a portion of northern Franklin County to the Canadian border and SAD 9, which serves southern Franklin County from Wilton to New Vineyard to Vienna in Kennebec County, can go back to voluntarily collaborating on services to get the most for students at the best cost for taxpayers, Clark said.

SAD 9 towns are expected to see an increase in education costs between $500,000 and $1 million under a cost-sharing formula proposed in the plan, SAD 9 Chairman Ray Glass said. SAD 58 towns are expected to see a decrease.

The problem is there are not enough dollars for education and only one solution was given, Glass said.

SAD 9 and SAD 58 have voluntarily worked together to provide efficient services for years, he said, and currently share some services including a music teacher.

The better plan would be to consolidate services, not school districts, Glass said.

He believes one of the things that poisoned the proposed plan is the threat of fines if it didn’t go through, as well as concerns that larger towns would get together to overpower smaller towns in the voting process, Glass said.

If voters reject the plan, SAD 9 faces a $400,000 penalty, SAD 58 about $120,000, Jay about $200,000, Livermore Falls about $173,000, and Coplin and Highland plantations about $2,000, the first year. The fines are expected to grow with each year of noncompliance.

Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls have a plan that is not yet finalized, Jay Superintendent Robert Wall said. That plan won’t go before voters until late January.

Both Wall and Despres have said all along that the two school systems, which are about two miles apart, should work together and that consolidation efforts could work if done right. That means keeping students at the forefront of any decisions made.

They need to look at the whole process and see how they can make it work, Wall said.