EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — Superintendent Quenten Clark said Wednesday that he will resign as top administrator for East Millinocket, Medway and Woodville schools effective March 31 to spend more time at home.
Clark said he made his decision to leave recently after discussing it with school board members. The date of his resignation, he said, is a compromise. He wanted to leave Jan. 1, and his $62,400 contract pays him until the end of the fiscal year, June 30.
“I am not miserable. They did not fire me, but I am a long way from home,” said the 66-year-old Farmington-area native, who lives in the Katahdin region during the week and commutes home on weekends.
Clark came to the school system in 2011.
He will be missed, East Millinocket School Committee Chairman Dan Byron said.
“We are going on the fourth budget, and there seems to be a lot of negativity in regards to our schools, and I think he has decided he has had enough,” Byron said.
“Working with the two towns [East Millinocket and Medway], he is in a difficult position,” he added. “We have been questioned a lot on legal issues and things that he has said, but I haven’t seen too many things that he has said that were incorrect. He is a pretty stand-up guy.”
Clark’s resignation announcement came during a school board meeting on Tuesday night in which the board made cuts or discovered savings in its proposed 2014-15 budget totaling about $143,000, he said.
The biggest portion of the reduction came when Medway school officials announced a tuition cap holding the total charged to East Millinocket for students attending Medway Middle School at $648,000, Clark said.
Medway officials, who send students to Schenck High School and the interconnected Opal Myrick Elementary School in East Millinocket, agreed to hold tuition at that level even if more students come to the school from East Millinocket, Clark said.
East Millinocket school officials had budgeted about $760,000 in Medway tuition costs early in the budget process, before its members could know what the 2014-15 school year enrollment figures at Medway Middle School would be, Byron said.
“We were very appreciative of Medway’s school board doing this. They want to keep our high school and Opal Myrick open,” Byron said. “Both sides have a vested interest in keeping our schools open. I think their board was gracious enough to help us out in this budget crunch. It’s quite a bit of savings.”
The $143,000 in cuts lowers the East Millinocket school budget to $3.87 million. The remaining $29,000 in cuts announced Tuesday came from the heating oil, legal fees, staff development, health insurance and food services accounts.
Clark said school officials would press for concessions when they began new contract negotiations with the East Millinocket teachers union in February. The teachers conceded about $12,000 to the school system and town’s economic difficulties when they agreed to a 25 percent cut in their stipends for the 2014-15 fiscal year, he said.
“I am sure that the teachers understand the situation and will have some suggestions,” Clark said.
The school cuts combined with the town government budget cuts lower the burden on local taxpayers by about $490,000, enough to possibly lower the town’s mill rate to about $30 or $31 per every thousand in property valuation, officials said.
The failure of the bankrupt Great Northern Paper Co. to pay for the last two years its personal property and real estate taxes, about $657,900 annually, were a major component to mill rate estimates for this year between $30 and $38 mills.
The town’s present mill rate is $21.93, or $1,096 in property taxes annually for homes valued at $50,000. A $31 mill rate would leave owners of $50,000 properties paying $1,550; a $32 mill rate, $1,600, or $504 more per year than they paid under the present rate.
By comparison, the statewide average adjusted property tax rate was $13.99 in 2012.
Residents will vote on whether to accept the latest budget on Election Day.