NEWRY — SAD 44 Superintendent David Murphy met for 90 minutes Thursday night with about 25 Newry officials and residents who asked him how to change the school-funding formula and how to start the school withdrawal process.

Murphy also shared insight on steps the district is taking to get grants to fund innovative programs at no cost to taxpayers to better educate students and prepare them for college. That’s while assisting teachers and dealing with ever decreasing state subsidies.

The district is comprised of Andover, Bethel, Gilead, Greenwood, Newry and Woodstock. Andover is going through its second withdrawal process after the first one failed to get the necessary majority vote after years of work.

Some Newry residents upset with the amount the town is paying the district to educate its students, have been exploring options such as withdrawal from the district or changing the cost-sharing formula.

“We’ve been putting in $2 million and we’re not getting our money’s worth,” Jim Sysko said.

Newry has 25 to 27 students who attend SAD 44 and is paying $2,790,285 as its share for 2013-14, Murphy said.

He said after the meeting that if Newry pursued withdrawal and it was approved, “it would be a huge loss to the district. They pay almost 30 percent of our budget.”

Several times during the meeting, Murphy acknowledged the importance of Newry in the district.

“We’re a stronger school district with you in it,” he said. “It’s really important as a school district to have you with us.”

Murphy said everyone in the district is picking up $2 million that the state isn’t paying as its share of state aid. There are about 800 students in the district.

Murphy said SAD 44 has a poverty rate of 50 percent or more.

“We have kids and families who are homeless,” he said. “The economy has done a number on everybody. We know that.”

He said the district needs to make an adjustment “and do whatever it takes for our kids.”

“We’re trying to recognize how much we’re asking the towns to pick up and hope we aren’t doing it at the expense of our students,” Murphy said. “We need to figure out how to do it better differently … We know we cannot continue to tread water.”

Selectmen candidate Doug Webster asked Murphy if it’s possible to pursue changing the school-funding formula.

Murphy said it is.

“There’s two ways that can happen,” he said. “It’s really a conversation around redistributing the funding formula.”

To accomplish that, he said Newry residents considering that avenue would need to create a petition and collect about 300 signatures districtwide. He said the petition would need to be submitted to the school board, which would allow the process to start.

“You could also petition the school board and ask them if they would consider doing that, opening it up,” he said.

Once that happens, a committee would have to be established, comprised of a selectman, a member of the petitioning committee, a school board member from the town, and a person at large appointed by selectmen.

“It’s the same as a withdrawal committee, basically,” Murphy said.

That group would meet with their peers from the other four towns to come up with some kind of a formula, he said.

“If they came up with a formula that they all could agree to, then it would move to the next step,” Murphy said.

He said the district would have to hire a facilitator to oversee the process. Should the group not come up with a formula, the district would have to bring in a mediator who would review everything that’s been done and create a different plan.

If that gets voted down, the process dies, Murphy said.

“If they vote yes, then the new formula has to go out to a popular vote in all five towns, and you have to have a majority in all five towns to approve it,” he said.

Murphy listed the town’s options, starting with the funding formula change, withdrawal from the district and staying in the district.

“From your perspective, what’s the lesson learned?” former Selectman Jim Largess asked.

Murphy said it’s a long, involved and expensive process.

“It’s like going through a divorce, you know, and still caring about the kids,” he said. “But probably the biggest lesson learned is that it’s not a simple process in that at the end of the day, regardless of what happens, you hope you’re in a position so that everybody can still work together so it benefits kids.

“I think that’s the big takeaway,” Murphy said. “Throughout the entire process, you want the end product to be that whatever happens benefits kids the most.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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