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In several towns, plans for alliances are unsettled as Friday's deadline nears.

By BETH QUIMBY Staff Writer August 29, 2007

A number of proposed alliances under the state's new school district consolidation law are already falling apart, leaving some districts without partners just days before they are required to submit plans.

Friday is the deadline for districts to notify the state Department of Education how they intend to meet the new law, which reduces the number of districts from 290 to about 80 to save administrative costs.

Several districts, however, are still scrambling to find partners after discovering that earlier proposals for merging would result, at least initially, in tax increases rather than the savings the law was designed to bring about.

In York County, a half-dozen coastal communities met this week to find new partners. And in Augusta, school officials were vowing to go it alone after being rebuffed by surrounding districts that had no interest in joining with the state's capital city.

"It feels a little bit like being jilted," said Edward McDonough, superintendent of the Wells-Ogunquit Community School District, which suddenly found itself without a partner after initially planning to merge with Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Arundel.

State officials say school districts such as Wells and Augusta shouldn't throw in the towel over mergers too soon. Although some districts may see a short-term rise in taxes after consolidation because of a redistribution of state aid, officials say such increases will be offset by long-term savings. They also say the Department of Education will seek changes to the new law to address such problems.

Under the law adopted by the Legislature in June, all districts with fewer than 2,500 students are required to merge, except those that meet the Department of Education's definition of a "high-performing and highly efficient school." Island and tribal schools are also exempt from merging. A few more may become exempt if they fail to find partners.

All school districts, exempt or not, have to file a plan by Dec. 1 detailing ways to cut spending by 5 percent for special education, transportation and maintenance, and by 50 percent for school administration.

Some school districts quickly found partners and alliances and filed their plans weeks ago. The number was at 37 late last week.

Other districts that are exempt, such as Cape Elizabeth, decided weeks ago to notify the state that they did not plan to merge with any district. School officials in Cape Elizabeth made the decision after polling residents, who indicated they didn't want to merge.

And now some districts are balking after getting financial analyses showing taxes would rise.

School officials in Wells-Ogunquit Community School District, School Administrative District 71, which includes Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, and the Arundel School District had meetings all summer on a possible merger, but shelved those plans last week after an analysis showed most taxpayers losing out.

Under the merger plan, taxpayers in Wells would lose $800,000 to $900,000 in special education funding from the state. "That was one of the barriers," McDonough said.

SAD 71 School Committee members were adjusting to the news their costs would rise for Kennebunk taxpayers and go down for Kennebunkport taxpayers under any merger scenario, because the new law dissolved a nearly 40-year-old cost-sharing agreement between the two towns.

"It is anywhere from a bad to horrendous impact," said John Sharood, a SAD 71 School Committee member.

Arundel School Committee members have told SAD 71 they are not ready to commit. They are still working out the consequences of a possible merger with Saco schools. The problem, said Sharood, is that if Arundel merges with SAD 71, officials would have to close one of the new district's four elementary schools to attain any savings.

"Will the citizens of one of the three communities be willing to close a school? That is a real issue that has to...