Two Franklin County school districts scheduled to vote on merging next week — more than a month after the state-imposed deadline — can apparently proceed without pending state subsidy penalties.

Salem Township-based SAD 58 votes on Tuesday and Anson-based SAD 74 decides on Saturday.

Maine school districts that have failed to consolidate are supposed to have a portion of their state subsidies withheld as a penalty. James Rier, Maine Department of Education’s director of finance and operations, had sent SAD 58 the coming year’s budget that reflected the 2011 penalty of $140,668 because it had not completed the merger with Anson-based SAD 74 by the DOE’s Jan. 31, 2011, deadline.

Sen. Tom Saviello, R-Wilton, and Rep. Russell Black, R-Wilton, and other representatives had contacted DOE commissioner-appointee Steve Bowen weeks ago about waiving the penalties. Bowen was confirmed for the position by a majority Senate vote on Thursday.

“Three weeks ago, he (Bowen) told me the penalties would be waived, but I guess Quenten never got that in writing,” Saviello said by phone Thursday.

But SAD 58 Superintendent Quenten Clark said that Rier had confirmed Thursday that the DOE would not impose the penalty if the two districts merged.

“If both units vote to merge by a majority vote of the two units, and they’re all operational by July 1, 2011, they will not be penalized,” Rier wrote to Clark.

Clark said he’s relieved that he can reassure board members who were reluctant to merge without guaranteed financial benefits. Clark said he had told them the penalty would be waived, “but they didn’t believe me.”

“Finally he (Rier) decided to communicate with us, but I’d been asking him about this for a long time,” Clark said.

SAD 58 board member Mike Pond of Strong was not impressed with the announcement.

“At this late hour, when we’re voting on Tuesday, why are we hearing the penalties will be waived?” he asked. “Every day, there’s a new figure, and there’s a new twist, and I wonder who we can trust to give us a straight answer.”

The state DOE had sent both districts the annual allocations for the coming budget year, and the total reflected the applied penalties for failing to consolidate by the deadline.

If the two districts approve the proposed alternative organizational structure, they would have one central office, one superintendent, and shared business office and special education staff. Both districts would retain the board of directors but would form a 10-member AOS board to develop an annual budget for those shared services. Both districts would be responsible for paying for additional staff or services.