FREDONIA-BROCTON SCHOOLS
Benefits for merging of districts highlighted
A group studying the possible merger of Brocton and Fredonia school districts heard Saturday from a nearby district that accomplished a merger more than a decade ago.
“We don’t even look at ourselves as a merged school district anymore. We’re a new district,” Chautauqua Lakes Central School Board President Randy Anderson told members of the Brocton/Fredonia School Merger Feasibility Study Committee Saturday morning.
Four members of the Chautauqua Lakes Board of Education spoke to the group in the Fredonia Middle School cafeteria about the issues inherent in merging two districts.
Students of the two districts coped very well with the merger, Anderson said. In fact, the combined student body of the Chautauqua Lakes District — who were from the Chautauqua and Mayville school districts — came up with the new district mascot and school colors.
“The students now only know one school,” he said.
The Chautauqua Lakes District has been around for 13 years.
And the Mayville and Chautauqua districts did very well in finding buyers for their unused buildings, the committee was told. Chautauqua Institution bought two, and a developer bought another.
The new district’s taxes have not spiked, said Jay Baker, Chautauqua Lakes School Board member, due to the district’s expanded tax base.
Anderson said the district is still searching for additional shared services and partners.
“We’re now wide open to doing anything regionally,” he said.
The tax base in Fredonia is about four times as great as in Brocton, facilitator Gerry Glose told the merger study committee’s finance subcommittee.
“Brocton is much more susceptible to change because of this smaller tax base,” he said.
More than 90 percent of a school district’s revenues come from state aid and property taxes, Glose said. If state aid goes down, property taxes go up.
“This would be more evident in Brocton because they don’t have the tax base and rely more on state aid,” Glose said.
The current flat state aid and declining student enrollment were two plausible reasons stated for a merger of the two districts.
Glose said there is a financial advantage to merging districts. School district budgets usually can’t survive within the typical annual cost-of-living percent increase, usually 3 percent. This is due in large part to costs for staffing, retirement systems and employee benefits.
“There is a tremendous opportunity to use the $30 million over the next 14 years,” Glose said, speaking of the incentive aid the proposed new Brocton/Fredonia district would receive for merging.
The incentive aid could be used to build up a reserve fund, which could be used years later to help stabilize future costs. Moreover, incentive money could be spent to lower taxes and also to invest in energy conservation projects, perhaps utilizing alternative energy sources.
There is a community survey that residents in the two districts are being asked to complete. The survey may be found at www.schoolstudy.wnyric.org . The survey deadline is March 20. The next and last meeting of the committee is set for 8 a. m. March 28 in the Brocton School cafeteria.
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