ROCKLAND, Maine — Two Rockland school board members are leading a renewed effort to have the city consider withdrawing from the regional school district.
Board members Esther “Tess” Kilgour and Donald Robishaw Jr. said they hope the city council could schedule a referendum this year that would begin the process.
A copy of the petition to begin the withdrawal process has been posted at City Hall for the past year and gathered few signatures. Over the weekend, however, the petition was being circulated in the community.
To call for a referendum, Kilgour said, the petitioners need to collect at least 272 signatures of registered Rockland residents, which is equal to 10 percent of the Rockland people who voted in the last gubernatorial election.
Once those signatures are collected, the organizers plan to submit the petitions to the Rockland City Council and ask it to schedule a referendum. That vote would only begin the process which could take two years, Kilgour said.
According to the Maine Department of Education website, if the majority of residents approve the referendum, a notice would be sent by the city to the state and to Regional School Unit 13. The state would then direct the city to create a withdrawal committee.
Kilgour said this process is designed to gather information to determine if withdrawal makes sense. The former board chairwoman said the increased property taxes that Rockland has had to pay to RSU 13 and the projected huge increase for 2015-16 is what is driving her to have withdrawal considered.
Rockland’s payments to RSU 13 have risen from $6.7 million in 2009 when the district was created to slightly more than $8 million this year. The projected cost in 2015-16 is $9.5 million.
The withdrawal committee would consist of one city councilor, one member of the organizing committee, a citizen at large, and one school board representative from Rockland. That committee would then negotiate with the school district on terms of withdrawal.
If a plan is developed and approved by the education commissioner, a second vote would be held in the city to determine whether to withdraw. Kilgour said she does not know if withdrawal will make sense but that it needs to be examined.
St. George will be formally separating from RSU 13 on July 1. There are 1,639 students in the district not including St. George students, and 740 of them from Rockland.