Title
Interlocal Agreement and Lease with RSU 14 for the Shared Maintenance Facility.
Body
For more than thirty-five years the Windham School Department (now Windham-Raymond School District, RSU 14) has occupied a portion of the public works facility site at 185 Windham Center Road to house its transportation maintenance operations. When the new maintenance facility was proposed in 2015, and again in 2017, it was designed to continue accommodating the school district’s use as well as the town’s. This was with the understanding that the school district would be expected to continue making lease payments to the town, but that the least payments would be updated to reflect its proportional use of the facility.
Following the approval of the maintenance facility referendum last fall we have been working on, among other things, drafting an interlocal agreement and lease to be executed by both the Town of Windham and the Windham-Raymond School District. Among the issues we have had to address is the structure of the two related documents to align with state education subsidy rules, for the benefit of taxpayers both in Raymond and Windham. The attached draft agreements are the result of months of work by the respective administrations and legal counsel of the town and the school district, and are designed to resemble as closely as possible the “partnership model” that was presented to both the Town Council and RSU 14 Board of Directors at public meetings last summer.
Bonnie Martinolich, the attorney at Preti Flaherty who worked on this agreement for the town, will be present at Tuesday evening’s meeting to walk the Council through the agreement and answer any questions. The RSU 14 Board of Directors is holding a public forum on the agreement in Council Chambers on Wednesday, September 5, and is scheduled to vote on September 19. The Council’s vote will be scheduled after that takes place.