Wiscasset’s elected officials will need to work together to avoid a year one school budget that hurts students and taxpayers, budget committee members said.

“If this isn't ... done right, this town is going to be in a heck of a mess,” member Bill Barnes said November 21. “There's people that are strapped right now, and this is going to be devastating for them.”

The budget panel and selectmen have clashed often this year, over town spending and even their respective takes on how well the two communicate with each other; and the new school committee has yet to be elected.

But as soon as it has been, communication between it and the other two panels will be key to keeping the withdrawal from Regional School Unit 12 as pain-free as possible, budget committee members said.

The alternative is voter confusion and a bumpy start for the new school department, member John Merry argued. “It's got to be done right the first time.”

“Or it'll tear the town apart,” Barnes said.

The possible financial and other impacts of withdrawal were the subject of debate prior to the town's November 5 vote to leave the district. At the budget committee's November 21 meeting, members predicted a tax hike and a hit on the quality of a Wiscasset education — unless the first, post-RSU 12 budget is forged through cooperation.

Even then, it won't be easy, they said.

Member Ray Soule said a lot depends on decisions at the state level; that's where much of the control over education really lies, he said. “(The state's) going to have the reins in their hand, and whichever way they pull is where we're going to have to go.”

The panel's thoughts on paring the number of schools in town to fit the student population were similar to ideas floated about locally in recent years.

The town should close the primary and middle schools, send those students to the high school, and tuition out the high school students elsewhere, member Richard Hanson said.

“Let them go where they want to go, like most of the other towns do,” Hanson said.

Closing any building or buildings could take a couple of years, Merry said.

Following the school committee elections on January 7, the budget committee plans to ask to meet with the new panel.

In an interview November 22, Selectmen's Chairman Ed Polewarczyk said he wasn't sure the selectmen have any formal role in the school budget process. However, he plans to attend as many meetings on the school budget as he can, in order to stay informed, he said.

Polewarczyk said other citizens should, as well. The same goes for next year's municipal budget, on the heels of this year's that took repeated town votes, he said.

“I think there were lessons learned, and that we all need to work together and we all need to listen to each other,” Polewarczyk said.