ROXBURY —  Selectmen unanimously voted Tuesday night to form an exploratory committee, at no cost to the town, to determine if Roxbury should withdraw from RSU 10.

After learning that other towns are forming such committees, Selectmen John Sutton, Mike Worthley and Tim Derouche and Tax Collector/Treasurer Renee Hodsdon said they are merely seeking information.

The district includes the towns of Canton, Carthage, Dixfield, Peru, Buckfield, Hartford, Sumner, Byron, Mexico, Roxbury, Rumford and Hanover.

Derouche and Hodsdon said they know Roxbury’s RSU 10 assessment will increase and that’s cause for concern.

“My thoughts are that we’re paying a fair amount now, but we do know that it’s going to change,” Derouche said. “But how can we know (what it will cost) when we don’t even know what the change is going to be?”

“We know it’s going to go up,” Hodsdon said. “We know that; it’s a given. An exploratory committee would just be a committee that’s put together to explore what our options would be and what it would cost.”

Forming such a committee does not mean selectmen will make a recommendation that Roxbury withdraw from the district, Sutton stressed.

“I don’t know what the pros and the cons are,” Sutton, the board chairman, said. “This is just something we’re trying to do here to get the information.”

When Derouche said he wasn’t sure what it would cost to withdraw, Hodsdon said that would be the next step, finding out that information.

She said the exploratory committee would be comprised of volunteers making calls to gather information.

“And find out what the process is,” Sutton said. “I’m very concerned that because of the number of students we have, and it’s my understanding that it would be at 75 percent of our value that we pay the school when we only have 10 students. That’s going to be a major bill for the town of Roxbury.

Resident Jean Shaw said that she, too, is concerned, “because a lot of the other towns are discussing withdrawing from the RSU.”

“And if they’re successful in doing that, then the cost the RSU would have to be absorbed by the people who are still in the RSU,” she said.

Roxbury has no school facilities that they would have to turn over if the town left the district. However, the town would be responsible for a portion of the district’s debt, Sutton said.

“That’s why we need this committee formed to say, ‘OK, what does it mean?'” he said.

“Right now, it’s not an unreasonable cost for educating our students,” Derouche said. “But right now, if we go to the state valuation estimate, it’s like $30,000 to $35,000 per student and that’s crazy.”

“And I’m not trying to shirk our duties and not provide an education for the children, but I think it’s something we should look into,” Sutton said. “It may not come to anything.”

Worthley motioned to form the committee. After more discussion, and at Derouche’s suggestion, Worthley revised his motion to form the committee so long as it didn’t cost the town anything.

In other business, selectmen also voted 3-0 to set a depreciation rate for the Record Hill Wind Project.

“We were given various figures and we decided to go on 3 percent per annum depreciation down to a base of 50 percent of the value of the project,” Sutton said.

When asked by Shaw if that was for 20 years, Sutton said it would be for 16 to 17 years.

The board also learned that it will need to have a contractor rebury culverts that were uncovered during recent road flooding with the sudden warm-up.

Worthley said there were two ice jams on the Swift River, behind which water built up before the ice blockages let go.

Derouche said the state transportation department will be replacing two problem culverts this year. One is at the bottom of the big hill on Route 120; the other is at Main Street and Roxbury Notch Road.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com