Gray-New Gloucester School District was denied a plan to go it alone on school consolidation from the state.

However, the state gave the district the go ahead to continue putting together a plan to merge with Union 29, which consists of Poland, Mechanic Falls and Minot.

Some school units are called SADs, which are collections of town that form a single school district. Unions, however, are collections of towns where each community retains its own school board and budget but share a superintendent.

For school officials, the news comes as no surprise.

“I totally expected it,” said Victoria Burns, superintendent of SAD 15.

“We had to do our due diligence certainly in our conservations (with Union 29) to see if we can make it work or not,” Burns said.

Burns said, however, the preliminary numbers suggest it would cost Gray-New Gloucester $1.2 million to merge with Union 29.

According to Burns, that’s because the higher property values and student population in Gray-New Gloucester.

SAD 15 is a district of five schools, 1,960 students and a $19.7 million budget.

Burns said the cost, however, is before calculating any major changes to the district.

“All we can do is take it one step at a time and if there are savings to be found, we’ll find it,” Burns said.

“I feel it’s very important that we take this seriously and do what is required to see if we can build a school district to produce the cost savings that the state is asking, but ultimately it’s up to the citizens,” she said.

According to SAD board chair Dr. Alan Rich, ultimately the success of the merger will be driven by economics, particularly the effect of consolidation on the tax rates in individual towns.

This merger “can turn out to be disadvantageous to some members of the group and advantageous to others,” Rich said.

Down the road, Rich said, residents of these towns may have to decide between paying a possible increase in their taxes as opposed to paying the state imposed penalty for not merging, he said.

Either way, with the high bar of cost savings set by the state and the tight timeframe for implementing the new districts, everybody agrees it should be interesting to watch consolidations unfold.

“Well, it’s going to be interesting to see where this goes,” said Josie Mann, president of the Gray-New Gloucester Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) and resident of New Gloucester. “I really hope that they’ll just let us be by ourselves,” she said.

When told about the initial cost for the merger, Mann described her reaction as one of “disbelief.”

“I’m thinking they’re supposed to be saving us money. That’s a shocker,” she said.