BELFAST - Under pressure to get through a laundry list of obligations in a short time, the RSU 71 board of directors hired former RSU 20 leader Bruce Mailloux as interim superintendent until the July 1 launch of the new five-town district.

Mailloux retired from RSU 20 in 2012 and currently works part-time as superintendent for Vinalhaven. The RSU 71 board on Monday voted unanimously to hire him through July 1 at a rate of $500 per day with a maximum compensation of $25,000.

That breaks down to 50 days over the next five months, or roughly half time.

RSU 71 board chairman David Crabiel said the new board, which met for the first time a week ago, had little choice but to rely upon the recommendation of the “transition team,” a group of municipal representatives charged with giving RSU 71 a jump start after the November referendum that authorized five towns to leave RSU 20 and create the new school distrct.

“I think its important to recognize what the Board did and didn't do last night,” he said, in a written comment after the meeting. “We hired an Interim Superintendent to help with [administrative] tasks for the new RSU. We did not hire a permanent superintendent to help with the vision of the RSU. We hired someone that knows the ins and outs of the current system, has a love for the RSU, can work with the RSU 20 [administration] and staff, and can start from day 1 helping us get all that needs to be done, done.”

Voters in Belfast, Belmont, Morrill, Searsmont and Swanville approved withdrawal and reformation plans in the general election. Authority over the schools doesn’t changes hands until July 1, but provisions of the plans approved in November allowed the five towns to elect a school board. The board could then hire a superintendent and other administrators and borrow up to $150,000 for transitional expenses, among other things.

At the RSU 71 board’s first meeting last week, representatives of the transition team handed off their work in the form of a long to-do list. At the top was hiring an interim superintendent. The team recommended hiring Mailloux and doing it as soon as possible.

The group had reportedly found few candidates on a list from the Maine School Management Association who were willing to consider a interim post in this area. Of those they contacted, none were willing to apply for the Belfast job.

Some members of the new RSU 71 board said they were fortunate to have a canididate with Mailloux’s knowledge of the distrct. Others seemed unsure about taking the transition team’s recommendation at face value. All acknowledged the pressure coming from the transition team to get started right away. 

In an open-to-the-public session at the start of Tuesday night’s meeting, Betty Lu Davis, president of Education Association by the Bay, the local teachers’ union, reopened the question of process.

Davis said she was “excited and concerned” about the direction the board was taking. She emphasized the importance of transparency and cast doubt on the transition team’s recommendation, asking to see the list of candidates used in the search for an interim superintendent, “to know that others were contacted.”

Tony Swebilius, the transition team’s representative from Morrill, told the board that Mailloux was put in charge of contacting potential candidates. The former SAD 34 and RSU 20 superintendent has served as an unpaid advisor to towns seeking to withdraw from RSU 20 over the past three years and had continued as an advisor to the transition team.  

When the recommendation to hire Mailloux was put forward last week, some board members counted the new district as lucky to have a candidate who wouldn’t be starting from scratch. Others expressed reservations about taking the transition team’s findings at face value. All acknowledged that they probably didn’t have enough time to do a full search.

Speaking outside of closed door deliberations by the board on Tuesday night, Mailloux said he hadn’t expected to be in this position. People in the community had asked if he might return to Belfast as superintendent and the conversation had come up at home, but it wasn’t something the transition team talked about. Nor did he seek it out.

Swanville selectwoman Cindy Boguen, a member of the transition team, said there was no discussion of recommending Mailloux during the search process. It was only after the other potential candidates declined that another member of the team asked Mailloux if he would be willing to do it.

Ultimately, she said, it was about finding the right candidate, and Mailloux fit the bill.

“We need someone who’s going to move the district forward,” she said. “There’s not candidates out there. As the transition team, we had to make the best decision for the district.

Neither Boguen, Swebilius or Mailloux could say exactly how many names were on the list from MSMA, though by one account it may have been fewer than 10. Mailloux said he contacted experienced candidates from that group, leaving out some less seasoned prospects.

He acknowledged the potential appearance of a conflict of interest but said he never intended to be offered the job for which he was charged with finding applicants.

“If people have concerns, they can give me a holler,” he said.

Ultimately he said the district needs to move ahead.

“You want things to get better,” he said. “I see teachers, staff, bus drivers, they’re ready. They’ve seen enough of this consolidation and deconsolidation stuff. They want to put that behind them.”

Asked what he will be looking at first, Mailloux mentioned several of the recommendations of the transition team, including personnel policies and an administrators’ contract that is set to expire in February. 

“It’s kind of hard to determine what comes first,” he said.

Crabiel said the decision to hire Mailloux was done quickly out of necessity, but the board is “committed to doing an exhaustive search for a great superintendent” to fill the permanent role starting July 1.

“Most of the board did not know Bruce, and none of us where on the Transition team that made the recommendation to hire Bruce. Bruce was also not on that team. We have to rely on the fact that the Transition team worked very hard, anticipating that the new Board did not have the time required to do a thorough search for an Interim Superintendent.”

Crabiel said the search for the permanent position will involve “professional search facilitators from the Maine School Management Association, teachers, administrators, members of the public, parents and of course board members.”

The search, along with everything else we the new board does, will be transparent and allow for plenty of opportunity for public, staff and administrative input,” he said.

The RSU 71 board tabled a number of other items on the agenda, but did resolve to hold an open public commment period at the beginning of each meeting. This would be a break from the restrictive policy of RSU 20, which requires members of the public to sign up in advance of the meeting if they wish to speak, and limits comments to topics on the agenda.

The board will continue to meet every Monday in Belfast at the Troy Howard Middle School library, 6:30 p.m.

Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com