The Brunswick School Department has recovered missing money from a vendor that locates substitute teachers, and has put a new service online.

Until recently, town schools used a Syracuse, N.Y.- based company called Sub It to find classroom replacements when regular faculty and staff are out sick. But that company stopped answering its phone and emails before the academic year began, taking with it the annual contract price of $5,640 and the district’s ability to quickly and efficiently hire substitute teachers.

“They worked very well for us for about three or four years — and then, all of a sudden, they didn’t,” said schools Superintendent Paul Perzanoski. “Last time I called their number, I got a car wash in Los Angeles.”

In a surprise twist, Sub It President Mike Doyle contacted Perzanoski to explain the mystery and apologize for the confusion.

Moreover, the superintendent said, Doyle had the district’s uncashed check in hand and offered to return it by mail.

The district had stopped payment on the check.

It turns out that the person who maintained Sub It’s website fell ill and, ironically, nobody else was able to step in and keep the site running.

“(Doyle) was very upset that we couldn’t reach him,” Perzanoski said. “The department that was supposed to get back to us dropped the ball, and he didn’t know about it.

“Sometimes a situation is not what it appears to be,” he added.

In the past, each school’s main office maintained a list of substitutes it could call in the event of a staff absence.

Now, finding short-term classroom help has been outsourced to a district-level, automated process. Each teacher can submit up to five people he or she would prefer in times of absence. If none of those people can make it, the teacher calls a hotline or logs into an online server. A message is relayed to a database manager, who sorts through a list of candidates then starts making calls.

Susan Woodhams, who handles technology integration for town schools, is managing the district’s transition to a new personnel provider: Sub- Finder, a subsidiary of CRS Advanced Technology, based in Montoursville, Pa.

The district interviewed three vendors, only one of which — SubFinder — showed up in person.

Eventually the Pennsylvania company got the district contract, worth $5,800 a year, paid monthly rather than all upfront.

The first year’s bill will be $9,800, which includes a $4,000 startup fee to cover staff training, files transfer and updating.

The unused Sub It money will be rolled into paying for the new service, Woodhams said.

“It’s a little more expensive than Sub It was, but it’s going to be more economical in the long run,” she said, adding that schools in Kennebec County, Windham and Saco all use and recommend Sub- Finder.

jtleonard@timesrecord.com