BINGHAM — Quimby Middle School lives.

For now.

In a 6-3 vote Tuesday night, the School Administrative District 13 board voted to keep the Bingham school open. The vote was the fourth time since December 2009 that the board has addressed closing the school as a means of saving money, including a vote in January.

But with 68 students in grades five through eight at Quimby and just 235 students in the entire district, it may be just a matter of time before both the Quimby school and the Moscow Elementary School are shuttered to save money.

“The school remains open because you need a super majority — a total of seven voting yes in order to close it,” Superintendent Virginia Rebar said Wednesday.

Board members voting to close the school were Bonnie Atwood, Adrienne Mathieu, Ray Francoeur, Pauline Lagasse, Joey McKenzie and Thomas Moore. Members voting against closing it were Sheree Brown, Leo Hill and Brian Malloy. Member Linda Hunnewell was absent and did not vote.

Declining student enrollment and decreasing revenues have made the question of whether Quimby should stay open a frequent one in recent years, members said Wednesday.

Board Chairman Malloy, a 37-year veteran of the school board, said he voted against closing the school as a matter of equity.

“It’s a fairness issue — my preference is to have both Quimby and Moscow closed simultaneously,” Malloy said. “That would necessitate that we either send our high school kids to other school systems or put an addition on our present high school so we could house all of our kids under one roof. We could save quite a lot of money if we closed them both.”

Malloy said the idea of closing both schools is an option the board is discussing. He said part of his reason he voted to keep the Quimby school open was because there has not been an estimate on how much the district would save by closing Moscow Elementary School.

Again, he said, it was a matter of fairness.

Board members expected to save $97,000 per year by closing the Quimby school, but that figure was narrowed to about $72,000 because of the need to keep heat, power, sewer and insurance current on the building, unless the town wants to take it over, which so far has not been discussed, Malloy said.

“I just didn’t think those savings were enough to convince me that that was the way to go this year,” he said.

Ray Francoeur, who was vice chairman until a couple of weeks ago but remains on the board, voted to close the school, saying he simply wants to vote the will of the people.

“It’s a very costly building to maintain, when you have a building with just a very few kids in it,” Francoeur said Wednesday. “We were going to take those kids and divide them to Moscow and Valley High School. But now, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The Quimby school was built in 1951 and dedicated Jan. 5, 1952. With help from individuals and community organizations and businesses, particularly the Allen Quimby Veneer Co., it was built at the site of two former schools, the oldest of which was built in 1878, according to “Bingham, Sesquicentennial History,” published by the Skowhegan Press in 1962.

Board members Tuesday night also declined to take formal action on the draft $3.02 million budget for the coming year, saying they wanted more time to research where and by how much to trim spending. Rebar said the proposed budget also was based on closing the Quimby school, so the whole package needs to be revisited by the board.

The district Finance Committee will again review the budget before it goes to voters, Rebar said. A new budget is expected to go before the full board at their May 8 meeting.

Doug Harlow — 612-2367

dharlow@centralmaine.com

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