x
Breaking News
More () »

Poloncarz pushes school district consolidation, citing new report

Erie County Executive, Mark Poloncarz, reveals a school spending report and a renewed push to consolidate school districts to save tax payer money.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A new Erie County expense report takes a close look at school spending across the county's 32 districts.

It's part of a push to merge school districts, in the hopes of saving tax payer money.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz released the report Monday afternoon saying, "We need to look at this folks. This is a legitimate issue."

The 52 pages in the report contain spending data collected from the 32 school districts across Erie County.

Poloncarz told reporters at the press conference that consolidation would do more than just save on administrative costs, "We know they'll be eligible for up to 40% of additional state aid in the first 5 years alone. That could easily cover any additional costs that exist from the consolidation and provide a better learning experience for students."

"The money sits there," he added. "It's in the New York State budget. It never gets touched. They keep on rolling it over. It's $125,000,000 they put in the budget because it's required by law. It's there. But nobody touched it because we don't have any consolidations anymore."

2 On Your Side reached out to Erie 1 Boces, and District Superintendent and CEO Lynn Fusco said that school districts have always considered consolidation as a cost saving option, but it's difficult. Fusco explains that when all the details considered, merging school districts can be more expensive than originally expected.

Dr. Bruce Fraser, Executive Director with the Erie County Association of School Boards, agrees, "As you evolve to a larger district you will need to create more specialized support within central administration."

Poloncarz himself acknowledged the challenge, "The consolidation process is a difficult process in New York. We're not going to deny that. One of the reasons we haven't seen consolidations in recent years is because the process is so difficult. It's laid out in New York State Education Law and must be initiated by the school boards. So, if one school board wants to do it, but the other one doesn't...it goes nowhere."

In his press conference, Poloncarz said he called on the New York State to amend the Education Law to make consolidation an easier process.

He also called on individual school district leaders for more transparency. He asked school districts to post at least 2 years of budget information online.

"Unfortunately, in most of these," said the County Executive of difficulties his administration encountered trying to get past and present budget data from school districts for the report, "sometimes you don't even get the current budget year."

Poloncarz pointed out that the county recently looked at ways to share services to save money and school districts should do the same.

He acknowledged that merging school districts would likely work better for smaller school districts and that the most common area to cut costs is in administration.

Poloncarz highlighted hypothetical mergers in his press conference, such as combining the 5 school districts in Cheektowaga and Depew, saying it could potentially save $1.2 million.

The County Executive says he plans is to have 3 forums with the public, as well as individualized meetings with school district representatives, to discuss consolidation. The dates and locations haven't been announced yet.

Before You Leave, Check This Out