BAR HARBOR — Anyone interested in seeing the impact of changing Mount Desert Island High School’s funding formula can now go online and manipulate it, just as members of the reorganization planning committee (RPC) did at their meeting Aug. 22.

“We represent our voting constituencies,” said RPC member Brian Hubbell of Bar Harbor. “We need input from those who are concerned.”

School superintendent Rob Liebow and Union 98 business manager Nancy Thurlow presented the working spreadsheet for a school consolidation model that showed how each member town would be affected based on participation, enrollment and valuation. They also presented variations on the model showing how each town would be affected if one or more towns decided not to participate.

Potential member towns include the four MDI towns of Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor and Tremont, as well as Trenton, Lamoine, Cranberry Isles, Swans Island and Frenchboro.

Mr. Hubbell, who maintains a Web site tracking the local school consolidation process at mdischools.net, said he has posted the Excel spreadsheet the committee discussed for anyone to look at and manipulate.

The committee considered scenarios based entirely on “straight enrollment” and another that factored property tax valuation into the equation, said Mr. Hubbell.

“Trenton and Lamoine get hit pretty hard by the straight enrollment,” said Mr. Hubbell. “In addition, Trenton would have to meet MDI’s teacher salary pay scale. From a taxpayer’s perspective, why would you want to do that?”

Critics from Mount Desert and elsewhere have expressed the opinion that other towns are subsidizing the education of students from Trenton and Lamoine who pay tuition that is less than the actual per-pupil cost; they contend it is time for those towns to pay their fair share. But Mr. Hubbell said that is only one way of looking at the issue. 

“It’s too simple to say it’s their problem to find a way to pay for it,” said Mr. Hubbell. “There is an advantage to all of us to have our students equally well prepared when they reach high school. And the high school wouldn’t be the same place with only 400 students; it couldn’t offer the same range of classes.”

The cost burden shifts when property valuation is taken into account. Using the high school funding formula – based 33 percent on enrollment and 66 percent on valuation – for the whole regional school unit would mitigate the increase for Trenton and Lamoine but have a major impact on Bar Harbor.

“The greatest consequence would be to shift about $1 million that Mount Desert is now paying to Bar Harbor,” he said. “That would be a non-starter.”

That’s because Bar Harbor only receives about $400,000 in state subsidies, Mr. Hubbell explained. It wouldn’t make financial sense for Bar Harbor to participate.

Nor would it make sense for Mount Desert, he said.

“Anything that gives Bar Harbor control of Mount Desert’s elementary school is not good for Mount Desert, even if Mount Desert saves $1 million.”

If tax bills go up in Bar Harbor, there will be pressure to reduce education costs, Mr. Hubbell hypothesized, and the referendum process gives Bar Harbor voters veto power over spending. Looking at elementary school per-pupil costs – $9,000 per pupil in Bar Harbor versus $19,000 per pupil in Mount Desert – it would be an obvious choice to shut down the school in Northeast Harbor if forced by voters to cut the school budget.

“It’s a balance of interests,” said Mr. Hubbell. “That’s why we worked hard to alter the legislation, to protect elementary schools from that pressure. Mount Desert is justifiably proud of their elementary school.”

He said the tenor of the RPC meetings is positive and that there is consensus on the general principles about where they hope to end up, but that the details are going to be critical.

“We are still working off the idea of responding to a common enemy,” he said, adding, “It seems like we are dithering but we’re not. There’s a vital dynamic to dividing expenses and determining what we value about our schools and our communities.”

The committee plans to continue reviewing the model until members better understand how variations will affect the education of students and taxpayers. The next RPC meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 5 at 7 p.m. in the MDI High School Library. It is open to the public.

“As a RPC member, I don’t think we have investigated all the possibilities,” said Mr. Hubbell.

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