Voters favor dissolving AOS 99
Voters in Blaine, Bridgewater, Fort Fairfield and Mars Hill overwhelmingly decided Monday to dissolve AOS 99 (Mid-County School District) and revert back to their previous structures which included the Bridgewater School Department, SAD 20 (Fort Fairfield) and SAD 42 (Mars Hill/Blaine).
Residents were asked, “Shall the Dissolution Plan for AOS 99 Mid-County School System, as approved by the school boards of SAD 20, SAD 42, the Bridgewater School Department and the State of Maine Commissioner of Education, be approved; and shall AOS 99 Mid-County School System be dissolved as of June 30, 2012 in accordance with the terms of that Plan?” In Blaine, results were 14 “yes” to 0 “no’s,” Bridgewater — 40 “yes” to 11 “no,” Mars Hill — 172 “yes” to 18 “no,” and Fort Fairfield, 37 “yes” to 0 “no’s.”
“Thirty-seven to zero is almost statistically impossible. You could have almost any question on the ballot, and somebody would vote the other way,” said AOS 99 Superintendent Marc Gendron, formerly the superintendent of SAD 20. “Over 90 percent of those who voted were in favor of dissolving the AOS.
“The referendum results just backed up the unanimous votes by the school boards that indicated that people seem to be better off going back to the way we were,” he said, noting that the number of people voting in Mars Hill and Bridgewater were higher because they had other items on the ballot. “The AOS would have been dissolved if only one of the four towns voted to approve the dissolution; we had all four towns approve the plan. We all think that’s best for the kids, and this vote just confirms that.”
The AOS will be dissolved June 30 and all administrative and personnel contracts will expire on the same date. Staffing decisions, including the hiring of a superintendent, will be at the discretion of the individual local school boards in each of the School Administrative Units and any real or personal property acquired for the operation of the AOS central office will be distributed to member school units based on the average amount each contributed to the AOS budget.
AOS 99 was established July 1, 2009 to provide system, transportation and special education administration, as well as the implementation of business functions including accounting, reporting, payroll, financial management, purchasing, insurance and auditing. Local officials also say the AOS was formed, in large part, to avoid state-imposed penalties on districts that didn’t regionalize. However, in the last session, the Legislature passed a law that removes those penalties as of July 1.
“We saved over $350,000 in penalties, we’re going back to greater local control, and I believe it’s what’s truly best for the kids,” Gendron said.
Shaw has been rehired as superintendent of SAD 42 effective July 1, while Gendron said the SAD 20 board will likely make its decision on a superintendent for the 2012-13 year at the April meeting.
The Bridgewater School Department is presently advertising for bids to provide central office, superintendent and special education administrative services.
“They will be choosing a new superintendent to oversee business and special ed functions in the next few months,” said Gendron.
Recognizing that this aspect of the nearly six-year-old experiment is over, Gendron said now the real work begins.
“Now we have the business of disentangling our financial and managerial responsibilities, and then setting back up to where we were before,” he said. “The work’s not done; now we have to actually dissolve the AOS and that’s not quite as simple because new contracts have to be done and things like budgets have to go back to the local boards, but — in the end — it’s well worth it.”
