FREEPORT, Maine — The town voted 2,228 to 2,152 Tuesday to stay in Regional School Unit 5.
The 76-vote margin means Freeport will continue the school district consolidation with Durham and Pownal that took effect in 2009.
A group called Moving Freeport Forward filed a withdrawal petition in October 2013. Freeport voted 953-768 last December to start the withdrawal process.
The Freeport Withdrawal Committee was formed in January to write the withdrawal agreement. The committee and the RSU 5 Board of Directors each unanimously approved the agreement at the end of July. It was then sent to the Maine Department of Education and accepted.
Withdrawal proponents said they were not disheartened by the narrow loss.
“Over [the past year], one thing has become clear: that Freeport citizens on both sides of this debate care deeply about education and our town,” RSU 5 Board of Directors member and FWC Chairman Pete Murray said in an email. “While the vote today settled the governance issue, the close margin between the sides points to the need for continued engagement.”
Murray said the RSU 5 board will use what it’s learned over the past year to make the district stronger.
“Every voter wanted what was best for students and our town, and now the RSU board has the opportunity to continue building on this engagement and ensure that RSU 5 moves ahead to create schools where teachers want to be and where all students can thrive,” he said.
Michelle Ritcheson, a member of the RSU 5 Board of Directors from Durham and of the RSU 5 Working Group, said the district now has some work to do.
“I think we have our work cut out for us healing the communities,” she said.
Ritcheson said the next big step is finding a new superintendent.
She also said keeping the RSU together will be better financially and educationally.
“From the beginning, I thought we were a better district together,” Ritcheson said.
The withdrawal committee on Sept. 30 presented a financial analysis of a stand-alone Freeport school district. Estimates were made using the 2013-14 budget.
If all tuition students, including Freeport students and 60 from Durham and Pownal, were to continue to attend Freeport schools, the town’s tax burden would be reduced by almost $289,000, the committee suggested. Without the 60 students from the other RSU towns, the tax increase could be nearly $345,000.
The total revenue for the proposed Freeport-only school district would have been nearly $17.9 million, and the total expenditures would be $17.6 million.
The total tuition for students in kindergarten through eighth grade would be about $448,000, and for high school students, it would be about $1.9 million. For the draft, 510 students were at Freeport High School, 297 at Freeport Middle School, 267 at Mast Landing School and 260 at Morse Street School.
The required local contribution would be about $11.5 million, with an additional local contribution of $2.5 million. Freeport also would receive $197,000 in revenue in nonshared debt from the RSU.
About $553,000 would come from a state subsidy, and $165,000 would be a special education reimbursement from RSU 5.
But according to another financial analysis, completed by former Town Council Chairmen Rod Regier, Fred Palmer and Ed Bradley, the numbers would be different if the 2014-15 budget was used.
Using the current year’s budget, if Freeport were a stand-alone district, there would be a loss of $274,000 if the current high school enrollment is maintained. If the 60 RSU 5 students left Freeport schools, there would be a loss of $907,000.