LIVERMORE — School directors voted Thursday to transfer $8,669 from the middle school contingency fund to pay for mold cleanup in the basement of Livermore Falls Middle School.

The total cost of cleanup and air-quality testing came to $11,184, Regional School Unit 36 Superintendent Judith Harvey said. The testing was paid for with stimulus money, she said.

Harvey said she ordered testing after mold was discovered in three of four classrooms and the library. It is possible, since one classroom had a much higher level of mold, that it started there and spread to the other rooms, she said.

A leaking plumbing pipe and a wet summer were considered factors in the spread of mold. A mold abatement company did a thorough cleaning of the affected rooms in stages, she said.

Air-quality tests have since come back showing the mold was abated and the first and second floors of the school seemed to be fine, Harvey said.

One recommendation was to invest in a dehumidification system, Harvey said. Individual dehumidifiers will not do it, she said, estimating that a system would cost $36,900.

“We really need to think about what the future of that building is,” she said. A dehumidification system will go a long way but it’s still a basement and not a great place for students and teachers, she said.

It’s OK for a year, maybe more, but to spend $37,000 on a system, if “we’re not going to be staying in the middle school long-term is foolish,” she said.

“I think the superintendent did an exemplary job of taking care of this in a timely fashion,” Chairman Ashley O’Brien of Livermore said. “This is something we don’t want to see fester.”

In other business, Director Denise Rodzen of Livermore Falls said 466 surveys of about 2,200 sent out to get input on the future of the school system were returned. Of them, 83 percent of the respondents recommended putting together another plan on school consolidation.

Voters in Livermore, Livermore Falls and Jay rejected a plan earlier this year to consolidate. Since then, Jay has sent out a similar survey, whose results showed the community favored consolidating with Livermore and Livermore Falls.

Forty-four percent of the RSU 36 respondents chose Jay with which to consolidate; 24 percent recommended Fayette and 14 percent recommended the Turner area school district. According to respondents, the most important things to include in a new reorganization plan should include: cost-sharing of operating costs and debt; student services and curriculum; buildings and grounds; and transportation.

Seventy-seven percent of the respondents favored sending high school seniors and juniors to the new Mt. Blue High School/Foster Regional Applied Technology Center in Farmington for some classes, with 22 percent not in favor.

Ninety-five percent were interested in combining the high school with another area high school; and 83 percent would be interested in combining the middle school with another middle school.

Sixty-three people are interested in serving on a committee to look at different issues, including student services/curriculum, buildings and grounds, financial areas and governance.

Among the concerns of consolidation were cost, student-teacher ratio and student travel.

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