Maine voters may have rejected an effort to repeal the state's school district consolidation law, but that doesn't mean changes won't be made to the existing plan. Billed as a way to save money on administrative costs by cutting the number of school districts from 290 to just 90, the plan still has a long way to go.

While the effort to repeal school consolidation was defeated by a sizeable margin -- 58 percent to 42 percent -- some Mainers still believe the plan will fail.

"Two hundred communities haven't consolidated because there was no savings," says Skip Greenlaw, Chairman of the Maine Coalition to Save Schools, which mounted the repeal campaign. "If there was some money to be saved I think people would have jumped on this thing. But there just isn't money to be saved and people don't get it."

Greenlaw, who is also on the Deer Isle-Stonington School Committee, says he was deeply disappointed with the results, which he says can be attributed to his group's inability to raise as much money as the opposition. "I think the primary reason that we didn't get our message out is that we didn't have $300,000 - as the governor's surrogates did - to put our story on television. I think that if we had, it would be a very different story. So we're very sorry about that."

Greenlaw says he'll continue to monitor the state Department of Education and the Legislature's efforts to work with districts that haven't yet reorganized, and with those that have, to see whether they see cost reductions. "We went from 291 school districts to 218. But more importantly we ought to be talking about superintendents. We went from 150 superintendents to 136 superintendents and remember we're supposed to go to 80."

The state has further reduced the number of superintendents to 125, according to David Connerty-Marin, spokesman for the Department of Education. He says the department is looking forward to moving ahead with its consolidation plan and tweaking it as the department and Legislature see fit.

"We certainly weren't involved in the campaign but I don't think it was any secret that since we've been working on it for the past two and a half years, that we obviously want to see reorganization continue," he says. Connerty-Marin says a few school districts have already called to say they're ready to consolidate now that the repeal effort is off the table.

The law gives some flexibility to districts. They can choose which towns to partner with and voters can decide whether they want to join a new regional school unit or not. "We're in the process of reaching out to those remaining school districts that haven't yet reorganized and we'll be looking to see what it is that they want to do and how we can assist them with that," Connerty-Marin says.

It will be difficult for anyone to tally savings or costs resulting from consolidation because the state does not require schools to report those figures. "It was not a piece of the legislation to specifically require them to show what they've saved," Connerty-Marin says. "But of course it's not hard for the districts themselves to figure that out and they've been pretty forthcoming about sharing that."

At least one school superintendent is feeling reluctant to move ahead with consolidation. Dan Lee is superintendent of the Brewer and Dedham school systems. He says he knows consolidation has worked in some places, but he doesn't see any guarantee that it will benefit his schools.

"The town of Dedham was not particularly enthused about school consolidation," Lee says. "They have a K-8 school in their community, they're very happy with it, and I think they fear that when they consolidate at some point in the future that the school might close and their children will be absorbed into a larger school unit several miles away."

But Regional School Unit 24, which includes Ellsworth and 11 surrounding towns, has reported huge savings thanks to consolidation. Bill Webster, superintendent for RSU 24 says the towns now share guidance counseling, nursing, phys. ed, music, art and teacher development resources.

"We've saved in excess of $400,000 for this school year and I anticipate that we'll save in excess of $600,000 dollars in the coming school year," Webster says. "These are monies that allow teachers and programs to remain in our schools. And in this year -- or years -- of curailment, this is critical if we're going to be able to maintain the type of programming that we're used to."

The Legislature expects to take up unresolved issues and new proposals related to consolidation in January. Skip Greenlaw of the Maine Coalition to Save Schools, along with the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, which opposed the repeal, plan to continue their involvement.