The Maine Legislature’s Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs tabled discussion Tuesday on LD 1082, a bill that, if passed, could impact SAD 44 more financially than the withdrawal of Newry would.

The bill proposes to remove an exemption imposed 10 years ago on SAD 44 and SAD 6 that kept local school cost sharing based entirely on property valuations. The bill was initiated out of concerns from Frye Island, a town in SAD 6 with a similar valuation profile as Newry. At a recent hearing on the bill state Rep. Fran Head and Sen. John Patrick proposed that SAD 44 be removed from the bill.

The Legislative committee spent most of its work session Tuesday discussing the Frye Island situation, putting aside the SAD 44 question for a time. But by the end of the day the SAD 6 discussion had not ended, and the committee decided to postpone further discussion until a later date, according to SAD 44 Supt. Dave Murphy, who attended the committee meeting.

He said an informal straw poll of committee members was taken and most members indicated they would support removing SAD 44 from the bill. The committee will eventually make a formal recommendation to the full Legislature on the bill.