KINGFIELD – SAD 58 is trying to figure out how to rearrange its school administrators to save money.

Mt. Abram High School Principal Jeanne Tucker is retiring at the end of this school year, Superintendent Quenten Clark said Friday. The Board of Directors, Clark, and the district’s administrators have been meeting to discuss ways to move principals around the district without hiring new ones.

With increasing property valuations, decreasing enrollment, and a loss of subsidy, SAD 58 is scrambling to find ways to trim costs without adversely affecting the quality of education. This could include having one of the elementary school principals moved to the high school.

“If we can redeploy the people we’ve got, there could be a big savings,” Clark said. The cost of hiring a new high school principal is more than $100,000 including benefits.

Although the district would offer administrative raises to an elementary school principal willing to take up duties such as teaching, Clark noted this cost would pale in comparison to that of a new principal.

“We are going to be doing things in the future that we haven’t even dreamed of for a long time,” he said. “It’s fair to say nobody is happy about this, but they’re willing to do whatever it takes to deal with the situation,” he added, praising the principals for their response to adversity.

With another blast of bitterly cold weather set to descend upon the region in the next few days, Mt. Abram is fortunate to have its wood pellet boiler installed and working smoothly. “No glitches so far,” Clark said. “I don’t believe we’ve burned oil since last weekend.”

The new wood boiler is keeping the high school just as warm as the oil boilers did, offering 1,000,000 BTUs per hour of energy. One of the two oil boilers at the school was dismantled, and another one that’s used as a backup for the wood boiler is still in place.

“We’ll probably need at least one oil-fired burner running,” Clark said. Of the wood boiler, he noted, “It certainly will save us a tremendous amount of money over the long run.”

Pellet prices are more stable than oil, Clark explained, and are currently $180 per ton. A pellet mill is due to open in Strong in the near future, and Clark said that once it’s open the district could purchase at least some of its supply from the mill and keep jobs in the area.

The district had budgeted $200,000 for the wood boiler and the final cost of purchase and installation is expected to be within that total.

To the relief of Clark and the board of directors, SAD 58 won’t be forced to submit an alternative plan to the Department of Education detailing ways it will save costs after voters rejected a plan to consolidate SAD 58, SAD 9, Coplin Plantation, and Highland Plantation in November. “Much to my amazement, I called the state and they said we don’t have to do anything as long as we are willing to pay a penalty,” Clark said.

SAD 58’s penalty for noncompliance will be $125,000. Coplin and Highland will pay a separate penalty.