BATH — In a strongly worded letter mailed Thursday, the Bath City Council told the regional school board that its April 23 vote to change a cost-sharing formula among district communities — a vote that adds $337,213 to the city’s education expenses next year — violates the unique legislation that created Regional School Unit 1.

In the letter, sent in advance of Tuesday’s vote by the RSU 1 board to approve the 2012-13 school budget, councilors state that they are “concerned that our city’s citizens will not be willing to continue our relationship with RSU 1 should this matter not be resolved very soon.”

RSU 1 provides public education for Arrowsic, Bath, Phippsburg, West Bath and Woolwich.

After representatives of the town of Woolwich earlier this year questioned a significant increase in that what their town was slated to pay for the district budget next year, the RSU 1 board sought a new legal opinion about its cost-sharing formula. An attorney informed RSU 1 officials that they are required by LD 910, the law that created the district, to calculate all local costs based on a formula of one-third pupil count, one third population and one-third valuation.

Based on a legal opinion by Roger Therriault, who serves as municipal counsel for Bath and West Bath, the RSU 1 board in recent years calculated only a portion of the local share using the “one-third” formula.

Representatives of some other communities argued at previous meetings that adhering to the “one-third” formula exclusively was why they voted to join RSU 1.

Last week, the RSU 1 board postponed a previously scheduled vote on the budget to give administrators more time to consider options following the new legal interpretation and April 23 vote to change the cost-sharing formula.

That vote is now scheduled to take place Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Bath Middle School.

In its letter, the Bath City Council formally requests that the RSU 1 board “immediately begin the process of adopting a new cost-sharing method that is fair and equitable to the taxpayers of all member communities.”

The May 9 letter requests that a committee made up of members from all five communities propose a “new allocation methodology” to the board no later than June 30 of this year.

According to attorney Pat Scully of Bernstein Shur, who represents the city of Bath in this matter, the board’s vote unfairly penalizes Bath and Woolwich, the only two district communities that receive state subsidies for education designed to limit each municipality’s required contribution to education.

“That effectively takes the subsidies that the state intended to protect property taxpayers in Bath and Woolwich from paying more than (the 7.69 percent) and spreads (the subsidy) across all the member towns,” he said Friday. “When you do the math that way, Bath’s (property tax rate for education) goes up well over (the state maximum of 7.69) and other towns like West Bath, who were already well below the cap, go even further below. We don’t think the Legislature, when it created RSU 1, ever meant for that formula to be applied after you subtracted the state subsidies …”

The Maine Department of Education won’t provide any guidance on the issue, Deputy Commissioner Jim Rier said Friday, because “the way the legislation that created the district was written, they’re exempt from any consequences of the (state) funding law. I’m certainly not going to get in the middle of this. I certainly have no legal authority.”

Rier said he has discussed the situation with RSU 1 officials, as well as with representatives from Bath and Woolwich, in recent weeks.

“I’m happy to help with their decision in any way I can going forward,” he said, “but we’re not advising them.”

RSU 1 Superintendent Patrick Manuel was not available on Friday or by press time today.

The RSU 1 board of directors will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Bath Middle School to consider approval of the proposed 2012-13 budget and approve warrants for the June 5 district-wide budget meeting and June 12 budget validation referendum.

bbrogan@timesrecord.com