DURHAM – Amid the presidential and state Legislative races, Durham residents will also get to vote Nov. 6 on the future of their school district.

A referendum will ask residents if they want to withdraw from Regional School Unit 5, which also includes Pownal and Freeport.

Prior to the vote, a public hearing will be held Monday, Oct. 22, to give residents the chance to hear a report from the Durham Educational Exploration Committee, the eight-member panel of residents that has been exploring the town’s options if voters decide to begin the process of breaking away from the RSU.

The ballot question, as approved by the selectmen at a meeting last month, reads: “Do you favor filing a petition for withdrawal with the board of directors of Regional School Unit 5 and with the Commissioner of Education, authorizing the withdrawal committee to expend $50,000 and authorizing the municipal officers to issue notes in the name of the town of Durham or otherwise pledge the credit of the Town of Durham in an amount not to exceed $50,000 for this purpose?”

According to the selectmen, the $50,000 would cover all expenses and legal fees related to the withdrawal committee’s work in formulating a plan for Durham to break away from the district.

As part of the state’s school reorganization law, Durham joined Pownal and Freeport to form RSU 5 in 2009. However, at the beginning of this year, state law allowed for towns to withdraw from RSUs, provided a series of steps was followed.

First, a petition requesting withdrawal must be signed by at least 10 percent of the town’s voters, something that was achieved when more than 250 Durham residents signed a withdrawal petition at the beginning of the year. The question of leaving the district must then be approved by a majority of the town’s voters, and then the selectmen must notify the RSU of the town’s intent to withdraw.

Following that, the town must form a committee to come up with an educational plan that must be approved by the commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, a process that would begin if the residents vote in favor of withdrawal on Nov. 6.

Kevin Nadeau, the chairman of the Durham Educational Exploration Committee, said the committee plans only to present its findings at the public hearing prior to the vote.

“The committee is not going to have a recommendation as a whole,” he said.

Milt Simon, the resident who circulated the initial petitions to put the RSU pullout vote on the ballot and is a member of the Durham Educational Exploration Committee, said he was not going to take a public position either for or against the withdrawal.

“I’m not telling anybody how to vote,” he said. “I just want the town to exercise its option to vote.”

Simon, who does not have any children in RSU 5, said he began the petition drive earlier this year to draw to the town’s attention that state law allowed Durham voters to revisit the issue of the RSU.

“(My intent) was to give the residents another chance to indicate their opinion,” Simon said. “Because that wasn’t the scenario four years ago (when Durham voted to join the RSU). When we voted on it, we were told we had to vote on it, we had no other options (but to join an RSU). Now that we know there are other options, that there is no requirement (to join an RSU), there is no penalization that’s going to come our way if we are not part of an RSU, then I feel that the town should have the opportunity to vote again.”

Nancy Decker, the president of the Durham PTA and the leader of a group supporting Durham’s continued membership in the RSU, said she thinks Durham has a good thing going when it comes to the RSU.

“Many good things have evolved since we have become part of RSU 5,” she said. “AP classes, special education programs, more access to sports our children did not have pre-RSU 5, continuity in our curriculum from grades K-12 and a sense of pride in our schools across the towns.”

According to the RSU 5 superintendent’s office, there are approximately 420 students attending the Durham Community School, which houses students from kindergarten through eighth grade. Approximately 120 students from Durham attend Freeport High School.

Prior to the formation of the RSU, students in Durham had a choice as to where they could attend high school, with a majority electing to attend Freeport and Brunswick high schools.

Nadeau said the committee took a look at how the RSU 5 budget impacted Durham. As passed by the voters in the three towns in June, the RSU 5 budget for the 2012-2013 school year is $24.9 million, 4.21 percent higher than last year’s $23.8 million. As for the impact to local taxpayers, Durham is responsible for $3.2 million. Freeport will contribute $13.3 million and Pownal will contribute $1.7 million.

Nadeau said the committee found that Durham pays a proportionally small share of the school budget when considering the town’s population and the number of children it has in the RSU 5 schools.

“Durham has 30 percent of the kids (in the schools) and 29 percent of the population (of the three RSU 5 towns combined) and at the end of the day, what we pay to the RSU amounts to 13 percent of the school budget,” he said, adding that in his opinion, the situation was advantageous to the town.

“I would say Durham’s absolutely getting a good deal,” he said.

Durham voters haven’t always shared that opinion. This was actually the first year that Durham residents approved the budget. In 2011, the rejected the school budget by a 309-214 vote, with Pownal voters also voting against it, 204-134. In 2010, Durham rejected the budget, 546-515, with Pownal residents voting 403-156 against. In 2009, Durham also turned down the school budget, 330-117, as did Pownal, 343-58. However, in all three years, the school budget passed due to the fact that Freeport residents voted in favor and the total number of yes votes in all three towns outweighed the no votes.

There is no push in Pownal to pull out of the RSU.

The pattern of the vote, with Freeport voters pushing the school budget through, has raised some concerns about Durham lacking local control when it comes to the RSU, especially with the board of directors. Durham has three representatives on the board, Freeport has six and Pownal has two.

But, Nadeau said, even though the board, which determines the budget, is made up of a larger number of Freeport representatives, that hasn’t mattered when it comes to voting.

“You can’t do anything about the number of seats on the school board, because that’s all determined by state law and it’s based on the populations of the towns,” Nadeau said. “But, I’ve reviewed the minutes of every single RSU board meeting since Day 1 and there has never been a vote that split along town lines. Not one.”

Some residents have expressed concerns about how the RSU impacts local property taxes. At a public meeting held by the Durham Educational Exploration Committee in August, Greg Carter of Leighton Road told the committee he felt that the RSU was forced on Durham by the state and he would like to see Durham leave.

“I don’t like having someone holding a gun to our head and making us join an RSU,” he said. “The last four years, my property taxes have gone up 50 percent. There’s other options out there.”

Last week, Nadeau said the committee looked into the issue of property taxes in town related to the school budget.

He said that while some factors related to the RSU, such as the town having to assume shared costs for the central office and the high school, did lead to a slight bump in property taxes, other factors, including a decrease in state aid for education and a town-wide property value reassessment completed in 2010 that changed property values in town, drove up tax bills for some residents.

Nadeau added that Durham taxpayers are also paying for a portion of the Durham Community School, a cost that is not shared by the other three RSU 5 towns. Nadeau said Durham voters approved a gabled roof, larger gym and a geothermal heating system, all not covered in the state-funded portion of new school construction. Nadeau said Durham taxpayers are responsible for those costs no matter if they stay in the RSU. He said the town’s scheduled payment on that debt for 2012-2013 is $219,796.

One other issue facing Durham if it leaves the RSU is where its students would attend high school. Prior to the RSU, Durham students could choose their own high school. State law can limit that choice.

According to Jim Rier, the deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, a town such as Durham that is not a member of an RSU and has no high school of its own must have a 10-year contract in place with another high school agreeing to accept any Durham student who wishes to attend that school. Rier said if the contract didn’t require a guarantee from Durham that the town would send all of its students to the contracting high school, Durham students would be free to choose their own high school.