I have decided to vote to withdraw from RSU 5 for a few simple reasons I’d like to share with you.

First: It is very hard for the RSU to develop a first class educational experience when it is focused on budget disputes.

The tax impacts of school expense hits Pownal and Durham harder because they have not yet been through the cycle of adjustments to rising land valuations and declines in state reimbursement for education that Freeport absorbed before the RSU was mandated. All three towns value education, but Freeport is in a better position to pay for the educational resources. This difference matters because it prevents the RSU towns from working together to improve the educational experience for all our students. I don’t think you can achieve the educational product the students need unless everyone involved is fully committed to the process required to develop that product.

Since its inception, the RSU has focused on the costs of education and the unacceptable tax impacts of those costs on the taxpayers of the dissenting towns. The resulting discord has been expressed in budget votes, town meetings and RSU board discussions that have defined our experience together. We cannot achieve mutually acceptable levels of educational quality if we cannot agree on the costs of education. Unless Freeport withdraws from the RSU, disagreement about budget impacts will continue and they will define our schools, our relations with our neighbors and destroy our faith in and focus on the quality of our children’s education.

Second: The cost of withdrawal will not bankrupt Freeport taxpayers.

The fiscal consequence of withdrawal matters, but my recent involvement in the analysis of the tax impact of withdrawal indicates that costs will manageable. Since the town wasn’t analyzing the tax impacts of withdrawal, I sat down with two other former town councilors to see what the numbers showed. Using the most current RSU budget, and assumptions about reimbursements and expenses, we developed an analysis that suggested the financial impacts of withdrawal might not be the “wash” others have described, but convinced me that the impacts are manageable and will not be destructive to the interests of the Freeport taxpayer. If we withdraw, Freeport will return to the time when the school board presented its budget to the Town Council and level of educational spending evolved out of the resulting negotiation. The only difference will be that the taxpayer will have the final say through a budget approval vote. Since the costs of withdrawal appear manageable to me, I am confident our students and taxpayers will be well served by that process.

Third: I don’t believe withdrawal will result in a mass exodus of Pownal and Durham students from Freeport schools.

Some are opposed to withdrawal out of a concern FHS could return to enrollment levels experienced in the last century. Although I agree that a 300-student enrollment at the high school would be undesirable, I don’t think that worst-case situation is likely to reoccur.

The facts have changed. We currently have significant numbers of Pownal and Durham students enrolled at the high school. It is hard for me to believe that Pownal and Durham negotiated as hard as they did for favorable terms in the withdrawal agreement if they thought their students were going to leave Freeport schools in large numbers. Freeport parents opposing withdrawal have argued eloquently about the benefits their students receive as a result of their education with Pownal and Durham students. Presumably the parents of Pownal and Durham students feel the same way about the benefits they get from being taught with Freeport students at the high school.

The Withdrawal Agreement ensures that the educational opportunity now being shared by the students will survive. The Withdrawal Agreement grandfathers all the students currently in the system and provides priority enrollment for all Pownal and Durham students up to the projected capacity of the high school (500-plus students, not the 300-plus some are concerned about). The agreement anticipates Pownal and Durham students will attend Freeport schools for 10 years at tuition rates Pownal and Durham negotiated. Why wouldn’t the students from Pownal and Durham continue to attend the high school? Withdrawal promises their students even better education at tuition rates provided in the agreement.

In my view there is no reason to assume the loss of significant numbers of Pownal and Durham students if we vote to withdraw and every reason to believe Freeport will provide a better more affordable educational product that will continue to attract Pownal and Durham students to Freeport’s schools.

After 40 years of involvement in the affairs of this town, I can’t remember a more important decision we have been asked to make. I am confident the town and the schools will succeed no matter the result of our vote, but I believe strongly in the ability of our residents working together to achieve a common goal. There are so many examples of what Freeport residents have achieved when we set our minds to it, (remember Hedgehog Mountain, the YMCA, Hunter Road Fields, the library, FPAC, the Community Center and Wolfe’s Neck Farm, just to name a few) that I believe we will be more successful making our schools as good as we possibly can when we are working together free from the discord and diversions of the RSU budget debates.

Ed Bradley

Freeport