The Regional School Unit 1 board’s vote on April 23 to adhere to the cost-sharing formula outlined in LD 910 is now having potentially far-reaching implications and it’s become a fast-moving story. As we move ahead, we feel it’s important to provide some background and context, given that the issue began with some questions raised by the Woolwich Selectboard.

It first came to light when we learned that, based on preliminary RSU 1 budget figures for fiscal year 2012-2013, there was to be a $424,000 overall increase from last year, of which the town of Woolwich was to shoulder $303,000, or 75 percent of the increase.

When we attended the school board meeting in March, it was explained to us that the bulk of each town’s share of the school budget is based on its state valuation, a figure that comes from the state.

At a subsequent Selectboard meeting, which the chairman of the school board, Tim Harkins, and Superintendent of Schools Patrick Manuel attended, we learned from a representative of the Maine Revenue Services that our state valuation figure was correct.

At that point, we also learned from Harkins that the cost-sharing formula spelled out in LD 910, the special legislation that created RSU 1, only applied to “additional local costs.”

In other words, the “one-third, one-third, one-third” formula only covered about 12 percent of the budget; the remaining 88 percent of the budget (State Required Local) was figured by ED 279. This is a document that comes from the state telling the RSU what the local contribution must be in order to receive the state subsidy.

It further breaks out the Required Local by town and assesses either a town contribution or town allocation to each municipality.

The “one-third” cost-sharing formula refers to a cost sharing formula whereby: one third comes from the town’s state valuation, one third comes from the number of students in that town, and one third comes from the town population.

The question came up as to why the “one third” formula was not being applied to the entire RSU 1 budget. Neither Harkins nor Manuel could answer that question but said they’d check and get back to us.

The next day, Harkins was good enough to come to the town office to tell us that he’d found the minutes of that specific school board meeting. There was then some discussion and debate over the meaning of the term “local costs” in LD 910, whether it referred to “all local costs” or simply “additional local costs” (which is needed to meet the RSU budget).

There was also discussion about whether the figures that come from the state, in a document labeled ED 279, superseded LD 910’s allocation formula.

By the end of the week, the RSU office had sent us the minutes from that school board meeting, May 2008, and we noticed that, just prior to voting to accept the formula it is still using, the board met in executive session to discuss “conflicting legal counsel.”

The motion that was passed unanimously in fact referred to the legal advice. A few days later, we received a copy of one of the legal opinions, a strongly worded letter from William Stockmeyer addressed to Superintendent William Shuttleworth in which Stockmeyer strongly urged the board to adhere to the one third cost-sharing formula as spelled out in LD 910, that the formula clearly applied to “all local costs” and not simply the additional costs.

RSU 1 Business Manager Ruth Moore, in an email, told us that the other legal advice was “verbal” between Bath city counsel Roger Therriault and Shuttleworth, and that there were no written records.

Harkins is correct that the decision to change RSU 1’s interpretation of the formula was made in the open, in public, and it’s been used ever since. And the cost-sharing has been identified as such.

Perhaps if we knew more about how the funding formula was apparently changed at the last minute, despite clear advice to the contrary from the attorney who helped create the legislation, we might get a better sense of what motivations were really at play.

In anticipation of the April 9 school board meeting, we did some research. We looked at the legislative history of LD 910, which is public information available from the Law and Legislative Library at the State House, newspaper articles from The Times Record, and discussions with former RSU board members.

Based on this research, what became clear to us was that the one-third formula was to be applied to all of the local costs incurred by the RSU, not simply those costs over and above the ED 279 figure.

In the legislative history, we found the report of the “Regional Education Task Force Committee” especially compelling. It was made up of local school board members, interested parties and school superintendent Shuttleworth.

Their goal in establishing the funding of the RSU was guided by a desire for fairness across the towns, and noted that while an individual town’s shares would fluctuate from year to year, this particular funding formula was, in Shuttleworth’s words, “field tested to insure reasonable equity for all communities coming into this region.”

Moreover, the task force’s hypothetical budget actually uses the labels “Required Local (to receive [state] subsidy) (Divided by 1/3, 1/3, 1/3)” and “Additional Local (to support budget) (Divided by 1/3, 1/3, 1/3).”

We shared our research with the school board. With all due respect to Tim Harkins, who has been open and direct with us throughout this process, calling the LD 910 language “vague” with respect to local costs makes sense only when the legislative history is ignored.

At that school board meeting in early April, we were impressed by the acknowledgment by towns like Phippsburg that even though using the formula correctly would causes cost increases this year, it was the law and therefore the right thing to do. Other towns supported the need to follow the law that we voted for.

While the impetus for this came from our dismay at our local cost increase, we recognize and accept that using the correct formula may cause us harm down the road as populations and valuations change. But we’re committed to adhering to this formula since it is what the law requires.

We and the public, of course, have since learned that an attorney hired by the RSU board has agreed with our findings, namely, that the cost-sharing formula in LD 910 applies to all costs incurred by the towns. At its meeting on April 23, the school board voted to do just that, starting with the current proposed budget.

To call this most recent decision by the RSU a “change,” as The Times Record did, is a little disingenuous because it is less a “change” than the application of what the law required. And it was supported by the attorney hired by the RSU.

We want to be clear. We were not asking the RSU board to “change” its formula but simply to abide by the law that created it.

In fact, if the intent of the bill was to even out the disparate characteristics of each community within the RSU, we have not even tried this formula.

When you run the numbers, we’ve seen towns that would have benefited all of the years under this cost-sharing system, towns that have consistently “overpaid,” and towns with a mixed history.

Our feeling is that this will ebb and flow over time, just as the Regional Task Force predicted. Why not try this formula for three years, as LD 910 allows, and then report back to the state legislature, as the law requires?

This leads us to our last point. A regional system within a tax system that is based on political boundaries requires faith and trust in the long-term benefits, not simply immediate economic ones but educational and pedagogical ones as well.

How do we as a community of five towns benefit from the combined educational resources we have here? As we begin to hear threats, such as those reported in The Times Record, that using the LD 910 formula could “affect (some towns’) participation in the regional district,” we ask that the communities look beyond the purely economic costs and consider overall benefits, just as the Regional Task Force did in creating this RSU.

Dale Chadbourne, Lloyd Coombs, Allison Hepler, David King and Jason Shaw make up the Woolwich Board of Selectmen.

letters@timesrecord.com