Members raised questions about costs, voting power, school property, and whether the proposed regional school unit would provide enough benefit to Bar Harbor students and taxpayers.
Aug 26, 2026
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BAR HARBOR—Last week, following the lead of other towns in the MDI region, the Bar Harbor Town Council moved the school reorganization measure to the town voters in November as is mandated by law.
The Town Council has yet to vote whether or not to recommend the town voters pass the measure, but the town’s Warrant Committee, August 24, came back with a resounding 12-1 vote that recommended that town voters do not support the reorganization.
“I voted no simply because this plan is not enough,” Warrant Committee member Kate St.Denis said via a statement read by Secretary Louise Lopez because St.Denis’ wi-fi connection was unstable and she was attending the Monday night meeting via Zoom.
After a multi-year process and two voting postponements, the plan to reorganize how the island’s schools are administered will be voted on by all Mount Desert Island region towns in November.
The state-approved plan takes each individual school district in each town, dissolves it, and unifies them into one single regional school unit called an RSU. The proposed changes come at a time when other schools in Southern Maine are trying to find ways to leave their RSUs.
Proponents of the plan say that it will help put all students from all towns on a more even playing field before heading to the unified high school and cut administrative redundancies.
This week’s Warrant Committee vote follows a Bar Harbor School Committee vote earlier this August where that split board voted 3-2 to recommend the reorganization.
Bar Harbor requires related government committees or boards to vote on whether or not to recommend some plans or land use ordinance amendments to the voters.
The town’s School Committee, Warrant Committee, and Town Council will all have recommendations that will appear on just the Bar Harbor ballot.
If voters approve the plan in November, the RSU would manage all the public schools for the towns involved. Depending on the votes, those towns might be: Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro, Southwest Harbor, Swan’s Island, Tremont, and Trenton.
WARRANT COMMITTEE OPPOSITION
While there has been opposition and support in multiple discussions across the school system’s public meetings and town officials’ discussions, some Bar Harbor Warrant Committee members took a different angle with some members saying that they are opposing the plan because it does not go far enough.
“It stops short of real change that would impact both children and taxpayers,” St.Denis continued.
Instead, she said, it is largely administrative and does not address overspending.
“To have the change needed, we will have to sacrifice some oversight. If that happens, then we have to have confidence that hard decisions will be made like closing or consolidating schools,” St.Denis continued. “The current plan does not give the governing body the power to make those decisions. I understand that this is a starting point and I am a firm believer in someday creating an RSU, but this is not the model we have been seeking and most importantly not a model that benefits our children.”
Though she has been in favor of reorganization for a long time, she said, it’s fallen short. St.Denis charged the school reorganization committee to develop talking points with a focus on redundancies and shortages, to show where there would be cost savings by the proposed reorganization and show where the costs saved would go.
“My biggest sticking point is that it didn’t go far enough,” Warrant Committee member Tammy Bloom said. “I agree with Kate. It’s just administrative and it doesn’t follow through on any other consolidations. The schools are still going to be run the same and I don’t think we should have that the administrative consolidation without more of the physical consolidation.”
There were other concerns as well.
Warrant Committee member Kevin Knopp said, “The plan falls short. In my opinion, it’s not good for Bar Harbor. It’s not good for the Bar Harbor taxpayers.”
Knopp didn’t see a benefit for Bar Harbor students and said that he needed more budget and financial data. Without that, he said, he couldn’t tell voters that it was a good deal. His gut was that it would have the same service with less oversight and could even potentially cost more eventually for the same service.
He also worried about the amount of votes that Bar Harbor would have on the governing committee.
If the reorganization is approved, the governing body becomes a 15-member board where people vote for other town’s board members. That is the board with the power to govern.
“I also have a very big issue with the 3/15ths vote that Bar Harbor gets. Bar Harbor is contributing a lot into this, and we are only getting a 20% vote. The three islands are each getting one vote. And so the three islands together are getting a comparable vote to Bar Harbor and, for that matter, for Mount Desert, who each get three,” Knopp said. “I understand their explanations as to why they were doing that because they were trying to make sure it’s as fair and equitable as can be. But that to me was an extreme example of just going too far. Bar Harbor is putting in so much.”
He said Bar Harbor is putting in capital improvement money, funding, a new school, and the land the school is on. The RSU as a whole, he said, would be taking on the debt for that school, but believes because of the configuration of how each town would pay into the overall, Bar Harbor would be “getting most of that debt right back because then they’re going to allocate all of this on a formula that’s based upon the valuation of the town 67% and the number of students 33%.”
The three outer islands, together, would have the same voting power on the committee as Bar Harbor or Mount Desert.
“That to me was an extreme example of just going too far,” Knopp said.
More than that, Knopp said, the election for the Bar Harbor representation would be voted on from all of the RSU community, not just Bar Harbor residents. This is how it works for each representative from each town on the governing body. They are voted on collectively across towns.
“I don’t believe it is appropriate for non Bar Harbor residents to vote on who represents Bar Harbor. I think that’s up to Bar Harbor voters,” Knopp said.
If approved, the high school board would dissolve and it would be part of the RSU.
But there would also be local school advisory councils—separate from the governing board—that provide input on the hiring process for school administration hires.
Warrant Committee member Carol Chappell said the plan needed more oversight and agreed that the three members out of 15 doesn’t ensure Bar Harbor interests. She also focused on her worry that there wouldn’t be enough community involvement in and oversight of the budget process.
“Only people involved with the school will be developing the budget,” Chappell said. “The conversations and the give and take between the School Board and the Education Subcommittee of the Warrant Committee that we have done for years will be gone.”
This was particularly worrisome, she said, given the amount of the overall budget that is currently taken up by education—both the local school, administrative unit, and Mount Desert Island High School.
Votes on budgets will be at the district level and separate from traditional town meeting’s budget developments and votes. The give and take during the budget process between the Warrant Committee and Conners Emerson School Board will no longer exist and the Warrant Committee won’t be able to give recommendations about the school budget, she said.
“Several years ago, we had a Charter Commission. Our Bar Harbor charter is like our constitution. It defines our basic rules and government structure,” Chappell said. “The change that was not supported by the voters would have taken warrant committee review of the school budget and the citizens initiatives away from the warrant committee. It was defeated six years ago. Voters said they wanted Warrant Committee review of the school budget.”
The Warrant Committee also discussed the town giving away the debt and title of all school properties (land and building), which had also been discussed during the Southwest Harbor Select Board meeting.
One of the finer points about the potential plan is that each school would no longer belong to its town, but to the RSU as a whole. This includes the land that the school is on, not just the building, which hasn’t been clear to some officials in different towns, including Bar Harbor.
“We, town staff, trying to communicate with the Council, had thought it was just the buildings and not the lands that are transferred the land and then we read the full text of the proposal—the plan that went to and from the state—and it is both land and buildings to be transferred,” said Town Clerk Liz Graves.
In a July 15 email to School Superintendent Micheal Zboray, the Bar Harbor Story had confirmed with Zboray that the parcels (land) would also convey.
That concerned Warrant Committee member Erin Cough.
“Once they do take on the title and the use of the building, the town then doesn’t get a chance to say what it’s for. So if all of a sudden those want to become administrative, if our brand new school becomes administrative offices, if our brand new school becomes a single grade or anything, we have no voice in that as townspeople,” Cough said.
The town would have a voice if the RSU suggested closing the school—as a school—entirely.
Cough continued, “We had a huge amount of people involved in building the school and making sure it wasn’t just a school, but also a community spot. And that would be horrific to see um and not have a voice in in that particular thing.”
She also wasn’t satisfied that what’s set aside for the school’s maintenance wouldn’t go to the RSU rather than staying with the town.
Louise Lopez was the one vote in favor of recommending the reorganization. She did, however, have concerns. She wished that the student member on the governing committee could vote. She would have loved to see a non-education community member on the governing committee as well.
“I was not comfortable with the change to the budget process. It’s going to follow the current model that the MDI High School uses, “ Lopez said. It’s usually, she said, presented as a fait accompli without a lot of input from people outside the school community.
Warrant Committee member John Kelly said that the basic structure doesn’t set up a foundation that makes it sufficient for the voters of Bar Harbor.
Warrant Committee member Deb Parsons said a lot of people are pulling out of RSUs because they feel control is lost.
“To say we’re going to save money on taxes, property taxes, that’s bold,” Parsons said.
There is also a great cost to pull out of an RSU, she said, which other communities in Southern Maine are currently trying to do. Three towns in RSU 10 are potentially trying to leave their school district according to reporting by the Maine Monitor and WGME, which as Parsons said, is a 22-step process with the state of Maine.
The push for school consolidation began under former Gov. John Baldacci’s administration to decrease Maine’s total number of school districts down to 80. At the time there were 290.
In 2007, the Legislature adopted Gov. John Baldacci’s plan to reduce the number of school districts from 290 to 80. Only a few districts were exempted from the consolidation order because of their high academic standing.
Last year, the Maine Monitor wrote, “In May, Strong and Phillips voted to formally start the process to withdraw from MSAD 58; Kingfield and Avon are also looking to start the process. In early June, residents rejected the district’s $12.6 million budget.”
ALIGNMENT AND INTEGRATION OF DEFINITIONS
The Warrant Committee’s general government subcommittee voted 3-0 to recommend to the Warrant Committee that the land use ordinance amendment concerning definitions pass. The Warrant Committee agreed.
Several years ago, the state had passed an initiative about adding rural housing opportunities. The town put the state definitions into its ordinance. The planning department has now worked through the definitions and recommended moving five to a portion of the land use ordinance. Some are new definitions. Some are refined. Some are struck.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
The link to the Warrant Committee discussion on YouTube
- Land Use Ordinance (Click here to review Chapter 125 of the Town Code)
- Article III Land Use Activities and Standards describes what uses, structures, and activities are allowed in each zoning district along with the associated permitting authority that would review and approve the project application. This section will inform you whether or not your project needs approval from the Code Enforcement Officer or Planning Board (Site Plan Review).
- Zoning Map
- Use the Assessor’s Online Database to find your property’s zoning district.
If Approved, School Reorganization Plan Could Open Door to Island-Wide Middle School
A Summer of Planning Ahead for Safety at New Conners Emerson School.
Proposed School Reorganization Would Spread Existing and Future School Debt Across All Member Towns.
CORRECTION: At Wednesday, August 26, at 9:28 a.m., we updated the vote. It was 12-1 not 13-1. Many thanks to the people who can actually count. Unlike me. And apologies for that error.
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