Wiscasset's future of the schools committee found June 16, its subcommittee reports needed some more work and the committee's final report might need to note some unknowns that participants said were beyond the committee's task.

According to the discussion, the committee's report might end up saying, if the high school grades were tuitioned out and the other grades all moved to Wiscasset Middle High School and if Wiscasset Elementary School was sold, the committee does not know how much it would sell for, but the sale could offset the costs of changes WMHS would need, plus the report could roughly estimate the revenue from WES joining the tax rolls; and the report could say what WES' heat and light bills were last year, with the caveat the sizes of the WMHS building's bills might change if it becomes a PreK to eighth grade school.

For certain numbers, pursuing them could be going down "a rabbit hole that you'll never get out of," committee member Douglas Merrill said. 

Selectmen's Chair Sarah Whitfield, the board's liaison to the committee, agreed, but added: "I can tell you, with great certainty, if it goes out as is right now, it's not going to be acceptable to the public, in terms of level of detail."

In the June 16 meeting, Whitman explained what might happen after the selectboard receives the committee's final report. She said the board "will probably make some sort of opinion about, we either want to make a recommendation to the school board which they can take or not, or we want to make some other statement about it, or whatever ..."

And Whitfield stressed to the committee, "It is not our job to decide what direction to go, or even to make the recommendation of, 'This is the one that we choose.' Our charge was (to) put out the information on the options. And that's what we're attempting to do. And then that report goes back to the selectboard and our job is done."

The committee eyed July 21 as, potentially, its last meeting. In a post-meeting email that night, Whitman reminded committee members to send her their updated subcommittee reports by June 27, and she would get them a "final combined draft" July 7 to review ahead of the July 21 meeting.