Two differing reports on the possible financial effect of Freeport’s proposed withdrawal from Regional School Unit 5 are helping to fuel an intensifying debate as town voters get ready to decide the question at the polls Tuesday.
A study by the Freeport Withdrawal Committee shows the town could save money by becoming its own school district. An alternative analysis by a group of former Town Council chairmen argues it could lose a lot.
Meanwhile, two groups have formed on either side of the issue – Yes for Freeport, which supports withdrawal; and We’re Better Together, which opposes it.
Signs urging residents to vote both ways have cropped up all over town – a drastic increase in activity from two months ago, when just a handful of people spoke at the first public hearing on the withdrawal vote.
“There’s definitely a raging debate, and people are intensely interested to hear both sides of the story,” said Kristina Egan, who said she’s the only member of the Freeport Town Council opposed to withdrawing from the district.
“It’s what’s talked about on the football field and soccer field and at PTO meetings,” she said.
Peter Murray, chairman of the Freeport Withdrawal Committee and proponent for forming a stand-alone district, said people are “hot under the collar” about the issue.
“Freeport’s in the middle of a debate with itself right now,” he said.
The Withdrawal Committee, which presented its financial analysis in September using figures from the 2013-2014 school year, shows that, as a stand-alone district that year, the town would have saved nearly $300,000, assuming all of the students from Durham and Pownal, the other two towns in the district, decided to attend Freeport schools and pay tuition.
If 60 students from Durham and Pownal – about a third of those currently in Freeport schools – decided to go elsewhere, the town would have lost about $344,000, the analysis showed.
In response to the committees’ presentation, three former town councilors decided to do their own number-crunching, using figures from the current 2014-15 budget, which is $1.4 million higher than last year’s budget.
Their analysis shows the town would lose about $274,000 a year if all the students from the two other towns continued attending Freeport schools and about $907,000 if 60 of them left.
Rod Regier, who came up with the alternative analysis along with fellow former council chairmen Ed Bradley and Fred Palmer, said the group didn’t go into the process looking for a certain outcome.
He said they simply thought the withdrawal committee’s analysis was too narrow.
Murray said the Town Council asked the committee to base its analysis on a year in which it had actual figures of “what services were provided to students from which towns.”
Although the committee’s study shows only what would have happened had Freeport been a stand-alone district last year, he said, the other group’s analysis includes more assumptions, because it’s not based on real numbers.
Regardless, Murray said, residents shouldn’t be looking to these speculative figures for direction about how to vote.
“The numbers will work themselves out,” he said. “The real story is about the governance and the vision for the school district and what role education plays in the town of Freeport.”
Murray said withdrawing from the district would allow for “aligning the vision of the school system with the town,” rather than “to priorities that are more diffuse,” as part of a regional school system.
Regier also said the real issue is education, but he believes his group’s analysis shows the education quality will suffer from withdrawing.
He admits they used figures that aren’t yet known, including the cost of special education, the federal reimbursement for free and reduced lunch and the tuition for Durham and Pownal to attend Freeport schools.
However, he believes using the most recent numbers available paints a more accurate picture than using solid figures from the past – and that picture shows Freeport needing to raise taxes or cut programs if the town withdraws from the school district.
“There really is a lot at stake here,” he said.
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