From Crash: Today, in my tri-town region in the foothills of western Maine, voters will decide whether or not to leave RSU-10 (aka Regional School Unit) to form their own smaller and more economically fragile school department. Such a move is popular with Christian Nationalists and others who oppose public education due to philosophical beliefs and vaccine skepticism. All three towns are required to approve the measure. If that doesn’t happen, the plan gets abandoned…for at least three years.
I’ve been super busy with other projects and could not spare the time to research and delve deep into the numbers and motivations of those proposing the withdrawal. Then, last week, while visiting my pal Noelle Lueck in the hope of borrowing her livestock trailer to haul my three pigs to the abattoir, we got to talking about the local lunacy regarding schools. And Noelle gave me a crash course in what was wrong with the proposal. So I asked her to pen an explainer, since the Maine media has devoted almost zero coverage to the issue. This should be a warning to others in small towns across Maine who will likely be dealing with similar efforts in the years to come.
A guest Crash Report written by Noelle Lueck
I wandered into the Buckfield-Hartford-Sumner (B-H-S) withdrawal debate in July thinking I was just examining a school budget. Initially, I wasn’t necessarily opposed to withdrawal. What drew me in was hearing that our three towns were being shortchanged by RSU 10 for the benefit of the towns of Hanover, Roxbury, Rumford and Mexico (H-R-R-M). For instance, our buildings in Buckfield-Hartford-Sumner were supposedly ignored while Mexico got a beautiful new school. We were paying for everybody’s improvements, the complainers complained, and we got nothing in return. Local control — the proponents of the withdrawal movement claimed — would finally let us take care of our own needs without interference from the meddlers from H-R-R-M.
Then I started digging.
It turns out the truth was considerably less tidy than the gossip promoted by withdrawal proponents. The Mountain Valley Community School in Mexico, for instance, was heavily state-subsidized, which meant the cost was spread widely. But when septic problems arose at Hartford-Sumner Elementary, I discovered RSU 10 was actually addressing the issue and paid for the problems using money from the district’s capital reserve. Which means the towns of H-R-R-M were bailing out B-H-S kids. And that’s just one of the benefits of RSUs: spreading costs among many towns lessens the burden for all.
The Devil is in the Details
I looked at the proposed budget for the new district promoted by supporters of the referendum. And it balanced. However, a “balanced budget” spreadsheet demonstrates arithmetic equilibrium, but doesn’t demonstrate resilience. Or reality.
The first-year budget model was tight. Without getting into all the nitty-gritty regarding the number-crunching, it’s clear there was a lot of hypothesizing and guessing going on. Curriculum and improvement spending, for instance, fell from roughly $262,000 in the comparable RSU 10 budget to about $3,500. Which doesn’t seem like enough and there was no explanation for any sort of possible fix.
Even more maddening was how anytime there was a question about future improvements, reserves or program expansion, the committee of proponents’ answer would drift toward the future school board. Which made it feel like the RSU withdrawal was a vote to designate future boards to become our municipal junk drawer. Whenever something didn’t fit in the current plan, into the future board junk drawer it went to be dealt with by others.
Then I started looking at the politics.
This was a withdrawal committee, not a neutral feasibility commission. The educational consultant, for example, was hired for “budgets and transition” but at a meeting in March, she rebranded and also spoke “as a strategist,” issuing warnings against rocking the boat too much before the referendum. Which was confusing. Were we stress-testing withdrawal? Or merely designing something voters could be persuaded to approve without thinking about future ramifications?
All Politics is Local
There was another layer I had underestimated. RSU 10 had already been fighting a ridiculous, nonsensical battle over bathrooms and parental authority at the new Mountain Valley school in Mexico. A sitting Sumner school-board member who publicly challenged the new locker room and bathroom designs also served on the withdrawal committee and is sure to pursue a seat on the B-H-S school board if voters decide to separate.
I think some people genuinely signed onto withdrawal believing “local control” would finally let us fix our buildings and address problems they felt RSU 10 had neglected. Clearly, changing the boundaries of the school district does not create the money needed to repair buildings. A new three-town district starting with essentially no dedicated emergency/capital cushion could be more exposed to fiscal catastrophe than being part of the existing RSU.
The deeper I dug, the more it appeared they had been sold a bill of goods. And I came to see that a significant part of the withdrawal support concerned the cultural fight. To some voters, issues like bathrooms, parental authority, health classes and who controls school policy became at least as important as the physical condition of the schools.
Those two things were sold together under the very convenient phrase “local control”: fix our schools and take back control of their culture.
Rest assured, the conservative Christians in my neighborhood have their eyes set on running the show and getting control of the school board. Which means withdrawal is more than just bathroom policies. It’ll mean making life tougher for our LGBTQ students and promoting anti-science curriculum changes and other planks of the Project 2025 agenda. Which proves “local control” is about philosophy, which carries a helluva lot more baggage than mill rates and property taxes.
After attending and watching many meetings, it’s become apparent that for some supporters of the withdrawal, greater control over culture is worth paying more in property taxes. A lot more. And, to be clear, an unknown and unknowable increase in the future tax bills is guaranteed. And while it’s anybody’s right to hold these so-called “cultural” priorities, I just don’t believe their small-minded concerns should automatically become something myself and my neighbors — many of whom are on fixed incomes — be forced to pay.
Money doesn’t grow on trees
Which brings me back to the cash cost of this proposal. Initially, the committee considered a 50/50 valuation-and-pupil formula. Under that plan, at first glance, the numbers might appear fair. During a discussion at the July 30 hearing, however, there were explicit concerns that such a deal would increase Buckfield’s tax burden, which prompted fears that the proposal wouldn’t get enough support. And since the population of Buckfield is almost equal to the combined number of residents of Hartford and Sumner, such a move would doom the proposal.
So, in a move designed to convince Buckfielders the plan was good, the formula was revised to lessen Buckfield’s share and shifted more costs to Hartford and Sumner. As it now stands, the 75/25 formula is what residents are being asked to vote on.
I don’t fault Buckfield representatives for fighting for Buckfield taxpayers to pay less. That is their job, I guess. But I could never get past this: If withdrawal itself was valuable enough to justify higher taxes, why did Buckfield’s support depend on shifting some of its tax burden to Hartford and Sumner? And why are Hartford and Sumner taxpayers expected to pay that premium to keep the plan alive?
What about the children?
At the final forum, a teacher asked how withdrawal specifically benefited students. The educator said she had asked this question before and still had not received an answer. The committee claimed the plan intended to preserve programs, but could not guarantee them. Existing Region 9 “School of Applied Technology” students, for instance, might have transition protections, but future access for our local kids is uncertain.
Which means students in B-H-S won’t have access to the Region 9 classes teaching automotive, construction, CNA, tech, truck driving, culinary arts, welding, outdoor skills and leadership, small engine repair and other specialities. Kids around here deserve those opportunities and more. Not less. And we need those skills desperately in the western Maine workforce.
I could find no funded expansion of class courses, enrichment or other student opportunities. Which means — in plain English — that this proposal is NOT about providing quality education to our youth.
Local control tells you who makes the decisions. It does not put money in the checking account.
Since starting my fact-finding mission, I’ve been accused of deleting comments and being disingenuous. I was blocked by many of the officials involved in the process. Even my daughter’s name (who is running for the Legislature) got dragged into this mess. And someone I know quite well privately asked me not to publicly challenge their public argument. Apparently they could post their opinion and I was supposed to admire it quietly. Needless to say, that request did not work for me.
Ultimately, voters will decide. I only hope they vote on the district actually being proposed, not the one they imagine will magically appear afterward. Because enthusiasm by elected officials and supporters does not equate to a contingency fund. Local control is not a magic spell. Possibility is not a promise.
Sometimes, the hornet’s nest needs kicking. Fortunately, around here, there were several of us. And hopefully, our dissent will be enough to protect future taxpayers — and students — from getting stung.
