Bar Harbor Councilors Worry About Potentially Incurring Other Towns’ Future School Construction and Renovation Debts
Mar 04, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Havana.
MOUNT DESERT—A proposal to reorganize the Mount Desert Island school system will go before voters in June after the Mount Desert Select Board approved holding a special town meeting, even as some local officials said they do not support the plan.
In Bar Harbor, the next night, councilors worried about the finances of the reorganization, especially that Bar Harbor voters would have the burden of their own $58 million school rebuild and then potentially share new burdens if other towns had extensive renovations or construction after reorganization.
In Mount Desert, the focus was on if the plan puts students first, increased costs to the property tax payers, and perceived declining student outcomes in the high school and overall system.
If approved by voters, the RSU would manage every public school for Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro, Southwest Harbor, Swan’s Island, Tremont, and Trenton including MDI High School.
For the plan to go forward, it must be approved by voters in Trenton, Bar Harbor, Southwest Harbor, Tremont, and Mount Desert. If one of those towns vote against it, it would fail. The reorganization would dissolve the current Mount Desert Regional School District (MDIHS District).
The MDIRSS Reorganization Planning Committee requested that vote be held June 9, which is the general election day with Maine primary elections.
The plan calls for a new governing system for all schools. Instead of voting boards at each school, there will be advisory councils. The RSU will also own all school buildings. The RSU Board can’t unilaterally close schools. That can only be done if it’s “replaced by a new building and approved by the town’s voters.”
“It seems like you’d be taking control away,” Selectboard member Rodney King told School Superintendent Michael Zboray about the new local advisory councils made up of teachers, administrators, parents, and staff, rather than elected officials.
“I don’t think it would be that. I think the the advisory councils will play a very large role in providing what the school board is doing right now and the board will—just as the AOS board has sit and has provided guidance and local control, so to speak, to their individual schools. I don’t think that would change at all. It’s a matter of changing some of the inefficiencies within the governing structure and to make it more appropriate,” Zboray responded.
“I understand you are favoring this, but do you do you see a con in it, like a downside?” King asked.
“A downside. Well, you know, the town of Mount Desert will have to pay more money. If I’m thinking of individual towns that probably will be the biggest thing that I would see,” Zboray said.
The plan’s goal is to provide more equitable access to all students, empower educators, and deliver financial fairness and a unified future for the schools in the system.
Supporters and the plan creators say that it will help make sure programs for gifted and talented kids or students with unique needs (SUN) aren’t stretched thin, that it will provide more equal educational access, and help with any staffing shortages. It will also help with addressing transportation inefficiencies.
Instead of individual school budgets, there would be one RSU budget. Capital debt (such as the bond for Bar Harbor’s $58 million for its new school or Mount Desert’s $6 million in repairs) would continue to stay with the taxpayers of that town. However, most existing reserves would be used throughout the district rather than stay with specific towns.
“I’m also in a rather uncomfortable position being employed by the school department as an educator, and Mike and I have sat down on several occasions, at least a couple of times to discuss this very topic,” Selectboard Secretary Geoff Wood said. “And I’m not in favor of this and and I believe that there are some of these outcomes that can be reached. I’m in agreement that we could do a behavior program or SUN program. We could improve the transportation system without making it into an RSU. And what I said to to to Mike the first time we sat down is unless the discussion of this topic starts with improving the outcomes of students, I don’t want to talk about it. The outcomes of students have been declining steadily for quite some time.”
Wood was quick to say that he was not going to besmirch the school system, but, he added, “We are graduating students from our high school today that are far less prepared than they were 20 years ago. And that’s not okay. Why are we not focusing on that?”
Wood was not alone in his worries.
“It’s an uncomfortable position for me to be in, particularly my long history of the school board, but I don’t personally support this plan,” School Committee member Gail Marshall said. “And I want to point out that one of its biggest failings, from my perspective, is that it does not grapple with the efficiencies and opportunities for the future of education in this community. It doesn’t do anything about the fact that you have a school system that has a 12-to-1 teacher-to-student ratio, and that the cost per pupil in a town like Bar Harbor is always lower because they have greater economies of scale. . . . This is not a school board plan by the way. It may be on the AOS website, but this is not a plan that has been acted on by the school board itself. This is an RPC (Reorganization Planning Committee) plan and that’s two separate, very separate, entities.”
She said there is an eventual plan for a future middle school as well.
“I had asked Mike at one point—I hope we get this—that there be a calculator so that any taxpayer could find out how they determine what their assessed value of their property is, and they could go to that calculator and plug it in and put that number in and see how their tax bill would change as a result—either up or down—as a result of this proposal depending on what town they live in. I think that’s a critical piece of information that taxpayers are going to need,” Marshall said. “For me the question is not whether Mount Desert taxpayers should pay more, but it’s what are we getting for it. What’s the advantage for the system and for kids as a whole?”
Zboray said the plan would make it easier to preserve the great things happening in individual schools.
Selectboard Vice Chair Wendy Littlefield, who is also employed by the school system, directed people to look to the AOS website where there is information about the reorganization.
“It’s really amazing to to log in and read through. They’ve they’ve done a really great job of pros and cons and answering questions. And so I encourage people to go there and look.”
The May 18 Mount Desert Selectboard meeting will be a time people can publicly discuss the plan prior to the June vote. It will be held at the Neighborhood House. There will be a public hearing for the June 9, 2026 Special Referendum Election.
BAR HARBOR DISCUSSION
Zboray also went to the Bar Harbor Town Council on Tuesday, March 3, to ask the councilors to also approve a special town meeting for the vote on the reorganization on that same date. That will be before the town council on March 12 again. There will be a public hearing in Bar Harbor in May.
The Bar Harbor town councilors all seemed supportive of the idea of reorganization, but those who spoke had worries about Bar Harbor’s financial burden and a potential lessening of budgetary control and obligation to support other towns’ capital expenditures, particularly after the town voted recently to take on its own substantial debt to build a school.
Councilor Earl Brechlin said that he agreed with the concept of reorganization when it comes to administration, education, and programs.
However, he worried about the debt already incurred by Bar Harbor, stranded in Bar Harbor, while Bar Harbor could potentially incur more debt via the reorganization and other schools’ needs.
“We’ve asked the voters of Bar Harbor to pony up $58 million dollars for a new school that we are then going to hand to the RSU according to the documents I’ve seen here,” Brechlin said.
He wondered if there was a potential option to create an equity capture provision for what the town’s already kicked in.
“If five years down the road, the RSU decides that it wants to build something somewhere, Bar Harbor’s going to be on the hook for another big chunk of change,” Brechlin said.
The town would still be paying for the building, but not own the building any longer.
Zboray said that the planning committee looked at this carefully and plans for payback were rejected because the plan wouldn’t sell to any other community. The other schools would help maintain the new Bar Harbor school building as it has needs. This is also true in reverse. Bar Harbor would help maintain Tremont’s school or the Frenchboro school.
“It was a decision that we made and that’s where we are,” Zboray said.
For Brechlin, it seemed that the towns that made big investments in terms of the schools might have issues with this approach.
“Towns that have dragged their feet and haven’t made that investment and everything else, basically, they get off easy,” Brechlin said.
He asked if there was some way for Bar Harbor to get a charge-forward credit or another approach.
“I just worry that’s going to be a bridge too far for some people,” Brechlin said. “We’ve asked people for a lot.”
He wanted the plan to succeed, but worried about those financial implications.
Bar Harbor Vice Chair Maya Caines said she had similar concerns. She thinks reorganization is a good idea, but worried about the quick turnaround and if everyone had enough time to digest and understand all the finances and what they mean. She also asked if it could go on November’s ballot instead.
“I’m really committed. I want to see this pass,” Zboray said. He said they’re two years into it and they have a solid plan.
“It feels just very quick,” Caines reemphasized, when it comes to the council having to schedule a public hearing, have a recommendation, and for voters to furrow out the details.
Bar Harbor Councilor David Kief asked about future improvements to other schools. If that were to happen, would all the towns finance in that improvement, he wondered. They would.
“I still have a little rock in my stomach about us paying the bond and taking up the responsibilities for other buildings since our new building hopefully will withstand (and) go with no disrepair for awhile,” Kief said.
Charles Sidman said that he heard a lot of acceptance and shared vision, but suggested that it might be better explained as what’s in it for Bar Harbor. He understood smaller towns’ support. The challenge, he said, is not to sign on instantly, but what Bar Harbor voters get for this and what they are giving up.
“If you can’t do that adequately, it’s not going to pass,” he said.
Teresa Wagner said that she agreed about sharing programs, but also worried about the finances.
“This is not a small decision. This is a big decision that we’ll live with for many years,” Wagner said.
She, too, asked how this would help Bar Harbor kids who have outstanding outcomes already.
“For something like this to pass, it’s important that we understand that,” she suggested.
A consolidation for increased efficiency should save money for all the towns, Wagner stressed. She also didn’t understand how voters would have a voice in budgets. She, too, asked for a delay.
Kevin Knopp agreed with everything that was said. He added that he wanted it to happen, but that November was likely a better date.
He also wasn’t sure why the three small islands (three votes) have the same vote as Bar Harbor, which would have 3/15s of a vote, which seemed to him a diluted vote for the size of the contribution.
Brechlin said the establishment of the school committee is created by town charter. He asked if that would have to be changed. Zboray said that an attorney said that it does not.
The question will be discussed in two weeks at another Bar Harbor Town Council meeting. At that meeting, the councilors will put it on the warrant for that meeting.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/E4m6AMCKWOo?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
To watch Bar Harbor’s meeting.
Superintendent Says Single Voting Day Protects Fairness in School Reorganization.
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