CAZENOVIA — On Jan. 10, the board of the Cazenovia Central School District (CCSD) attended a joint retreat at the invitation of the Morrisville-Eaton Central School District (MECS).

During the retreat, the New York State Education Department (NYSED) delivered a presentation on the advantages and disadvantages of a potential reorganization between the two neighboring districts that would involve sharing central services and programs while operating the current buildings as is.

According to a message on the CCSD website announcing the retreat, the event was held for informational purposes only and with “no pre-existing intent.” The goal of the meeting was solely to explore whether shared services could benefit either or both districts.

The message explains that both districts are trying to be mindful of how they can best ensure financial sustainability, and they want to collect as much data as possible. The presentation was offered “in an effort to continue to research different opportunities to remain as fiscally responsible to the community as possible while maintaining high standards in terms of educating our students.”

No action was taken during the meeting, and neither board has plans to take any action at this time.

“Neither board has made any decisions about even entering into step one [of reorganization],” CCSD Superintendent Christopher DiFulvio reported on Jan. 12. “Morrisville just invited Caz to look at what it could look like.”

If both school boards do ultimately decide to move forward with exploring reorganization, the next step would be to sign up for a New York State grant to conduct a full merger study to determine the exact amount of money that would come into a combined district, as well as other benefits and any possible pitfalls.

Morrisville-Eaton’s situation

On Jan. 8, MECS Superintendent Gregory Molloy described the circumstances that led his district to invite the CCSD Board of Education to attend the retreat and engage in a conversation about a potential reorganization.

Molloy graduated from MECS in the 1990s and is the son of a former superintendent of the district. He is now in his eighth year as MECS superintendent.

“I’ve got deep roots and a long history in the district,” Molloy said. “Morrisville-Eaton is very special to me. It’s not just a job; this is part of my life. Each year since I’ve been there, there has always been some kind of need to put together [a] creative budget strategy to get through the next set of challenges. We’ve done some pretty innovative things to bring programs back into the district.”

According to Molloy, there was a “partial reliance” this last budget cycle on federal COVID-19 relief funds.

“We didn’t want to put a reliance on the federal dollars knowing that it was a short-term funding source, but there were a number of variables that came into play this past spring,” he said. “We just got to the point where we either [needed] to use those to fund our program or we [were] going to have to increase taxes to a level that wouldn’t be supported by the community.’”

Molloy said that to get through, the district used the federal dollars, reduced its programs, trimmed its transportation program/services, and used a combination of appropriated fund balance and expense-based aid from newly discontinued programs/services to close the gap.

“We [knew] it was going to be putting a strain on us in the next budget cycle,” he added.

Throughout the summer, the MECS administration engaged in conversations with the district’s school board to explore options for addressing the anticipated budget challenges associated with the 2024-25 school year.

One of the possibilities presented involves closing the elementary school and moving all students onto a single campus.

The district is still in the process of determining if closing one of its buildings could potentially help the financial situation, Molloy said.

The district has also considered creating a regional high school, but, according to Molloy, that would require partnering with other school districts, and there does not seem to be a “deep level of interest” in the area right now.

Another option was raising taxes.

“If we raised our taxes by 25 percent, that would take care of the financial challenges, but the likelihood of a supermajority of the community supporting a 25 percent increase in the tax levy is not very good,” said Molloy.

The idea of exploring a merger with a neighboring district is not new to MECS.

The district and Hamilton Central School District considered merging several years ago, and while the Morrisville-Eaton community voted in favor of it, the Hamilton community voted it down.

Molloy said that when he started investigating other merger opportunities, his initial intention was to show his community why merging would not be the best path forward. However, as he learned more about how the students could benefit from the financial incentives a merger would provide, it became increasingly difficult for him to identify why it shouldn’t be done.

To get a sense of other districts’ interest in exploring a merger, Molloy reached out to some neighboring superintendents, including DiFulvio.

Molloy said he approached DiFulvio knowing that both districts could stand to benefit financially, but also knowing that “probably 90 percent” of merger propositions fail because of the cultural challenges that go along with merging.

One significant financial benefit, according to Molloy, would be an influx of close to $25 million to $30 million in operating aid.

“I think when you put all the pieces together, we’re probably looking at $40 million to $50 million that would come into this combined community if we were to merge,” Molloy said. “But that challenge of culture was the great obstacle. There is a recognition that our two communities at least have a perceived difference in who we are and what our cultures are. So, how do we get past that?”

As his investigation into reorganization progressed, Molloy suggested that CCSD and MECS consider exploring merging in a way that would be much less visible to students and their families.

“If we just considered merging districts in name and having a single superintendent and having a single business office, our communities would save in the operational reductions administratively, but programmatically we could at least explore having two different wards of the district,” he said.

Everyone who currently lives in the Morrisville-Eaton district would be part of the Morrisville-Eaton ward, and everyone in CCSD would be part of the Cazenovia ward.

“When you take that element of cultural challenge away, it seems to take away the greatest pain that a merger could inflict,” Molloy said. “It doesn’t mean that [the separation would have to exist] forever. A lot of times, I think, [if] you are one district with two wards, you are going to be naturally drawn to each other in different ways. Over time, as that mixing takes place, we could explore if assimilation between the two communities is effective, and then in the future maybe there is more that you start bringing together. But that would only happen if we were to support a merger and if the communities wanted to continue to bring things together. If the communities want to forever maintain two different systems, that would be within their power.”

In August 2023, the MECS board met with NYSED during a retreat to explore the merger incentive aid offered by the state.

From there, Molloy held a series of town halls to try to gauge what options the Morrisville-Eaton community would be interested in exploring to get the district through its next set of financial challenges.

All the options explored by the MECS board were presented, and the community had the opportunity to ask questions and offer input.

“In the end, there were some community members that didn’t like things like closing the elementary school, [but] the general sense from the roughly 60 people who were at our first town hall [was] that all of the solutions that were presented would be worth looking into more deeply.”

During a subsequent town hall, Molloy presented the community with the option of “merging but really not changing anything.”

The superintendent said the idea seemed to garner a level of intrigue and an interest in exploring what that type of merger could look like.

Molloy, whose three children attend CCSD, said he sees first-hand all the great programs Cazenovia offers, and he believes there is a real opportunity for the two districts to blend some of their offerings to allow both student bodies to participate in programs that their districts don’t currently have.

“I’m part of the Morrisville-Eaton school district, and we have some amazing programs also,” he said. “We have amazing kids, awesome families, and [I] see how similar we really are. I’m living both systems, and we really aren’t that far apart.”

He added that the districts already have some shared opportunities.

“I have students at Morrisville-Eaton that go to Caz to play lacrosse, for example, and Morrisville-Eaton kids have played ice hockey with Cazenovia students,” he said. “The kids do play well together; they do blend well together. We’re not that different.”

The two districts also have an agreement in place that if there is a student in one district who could benefit from a program the other district has, they will find a way to get them access to that opportunity.

“We are not suggesting that we are going to merge districts; what we are suggesting right now is that we explore what it would look like and if it would benefit each other’s communities,” said Molloy.

Cazenovia’s situation

On Jan. 8, DiFulvio recalled that when Molloy contacted him last year to explain that MECS was in a situation where a merger could be necessary, the thought crossed his mind that Cazenovia was not far off from being in the same position.

The difference, according to DiFulvio, was that last year, CCSD sought a tax levy increase of 6.9 percent, which was narrowly approved by voters.

“To maintain our current programs and update our curriculum this year, we had to ask the taxpayers for a 6.9 percent increase,” he said. “We also utilized fund balance to round out our budget for the past several years.”

DiFulvio added that he doesn’t know how many times the community is going to support that type of tax increase.

According to data provided by Molloy, MECS and CCSD currently have the lowest school tax rates in Madison County, with tax rates on true of $13.58 per $1,000 of assessed property value and $15.05 per $1,000 of assessed property value, respectively.

“When you are talking about the two lowest tax districts in the county, in order for us to keep up with the opportunities of other schools, at some point — especially when within our county we have the lowest amount of state monies coming in — we are going to have to go out and ask the taxpayers for more money,” said DiFulvio.

After last year’s budget vote, DiFulvio told Molloy that he couldn’t envision presenting the idea of exploring a CCSD-MECS merger to the school board or the community at that time, as much as he felt for MECS’s situation.

When Molloy came back with the “merge and stay the same” concept, DiFulvio’s first question was whether it would even be possible within the parameters of the law.

Once the superintendents were informed by NYSED that it could be done and he learned how much both districts could potentially gain through operational aid alone, DiFulvio decided it might be worthwhile for the CCSD board to learn more about what a merged district would look like.

Molloy invited the CCSD board to the Jan. 10 exploratory presentation with NYSED last month.

“I think it’s important for us to look at all options for our community,” he said. “A ‘merge and stay the same’ option could allow us to provide more opportunities for kids, as well as strengthen our financial position and provide many benefits for our taxpayers.”

DiFulvio stated that he thinks CCSD has done a decent job of maintaining most of its course programming, but the district has had to cut a career and technical education teacher in the less than three years that he has been superintendent, and some students didn’t get into the programs they wanted last year.

“I don’t want our district to continue down that road,” he said. “I think, for Cazenovia, we are coming at this from a position of strength and also trying to keep our tax rate low while increasing opportunities for kids and setting [both districts] up for financial strength for the next several decades.”

Potential merger benefits

In addition to providing students with new programs and opportunities, another potential benefit of reorganization is the impact it could have on the district’s facilities, particularly its “failing” transportation center.

As part of a reorganization, MECS and CCSD could have a centralized transportation department and a single bus garage.

Currently, if CCSD were to undertake a transportation facility project, around 70 percent would be covered through state building aid.

“We don’t have that other 30 percent,” said DiFulvio. “We’d have to ask the local taxpayer for 30 cents on every dollar for that transportation facility. So, [do] we continue to put Band-Aids on this building that has holes in the wall and is literally falling apart, or do we look at it a different way?”

In a merger, the state aid rate for most new building improvement projects increases to roughly 95 percent.

DiFulvio stated that with the increased building aid and the influx of operating aid, the district would not even need to go to the local taxpayers to cover the remaining five percent.

Reorganization could also reduce the costs of investing in electric vehicle charging infrastructure, which all NYS districts will be required to do to meet the state’s requirement that all buses on the road be zero-emission by 2035.

Molloy also commented on the building aid incentive for merging.

According to Molly, CCSD’s current building aid rate is 67 percent, while MECS’s is about 87 percent.

He noted that CCSD has put about $46 million into facility improvements at the 67 percent building aid rate.

“[In a merger], everything that they’ve done that qualified for that 67 percent would go to our current rate of 87 percent,” he said. “So, for all of that [work] that the taxpayers said, ‘Yeah, we will fund [this],’ there is going to be a reduction in their responsibility to pay that back by almost 50 percent. It’s going to cut their debt in half on that building work. So, there’s the operating aid, which is amazing, but there is also the reduction in their debt service because of the benefits with the building aid enhancements.”

MECS currently has about 600 students and CCSD has about 1350, not including universal prekindergarten.

According to DiFulvio, a merged district would be similar in size to West Hill, Cortland, and Homer.

“Twenty years ago, we had about 500 more kids even within our existing footprint, so it doesn’t turn us into some wild-sized district,” he said, adding that it would not be unmanageably large geographically either.

Molloy stated that a merged MECS-CCSD district would represent one-third of Madison County, potentially giving it greater influence at the county government level and in Albany.

Both superintendents emphasized that their interest in exploring a ‘merge and stay the same’ option is driven by a responsibility to taxpayers and, more importantly, a responsibility to students.

“The idea of staying the same is responsible to the students,” said DiFulvio. “I think that’s the most important thing. That’s the reason we are here. We certainly need our taxpayers to support us, and that’s an important part of our job, but the students are first, and I think this could be a great opportunity for both districts in terms of what we can offer our students.”

Molloy pointed out that while part of the purpose of the state increase in operating aid is to allow schools time to plan for attrition to avoid layoffs, the one position that isn’t protected in a merger is the superintendent’s position.

“You’ve got two superintendents that see the possibility of great things happening for kids, [and] there is a realization that for one of the two people that are leading that discussion, there is not going to be work for them at the end of this process,” he said. “There is a lot for one of us to lose professionally, [but] we are here not for ourselves; we see great opportunity for kids.”

Both superintendents also emphasized that a reorganization between their districts is by no means a done deal and the talks of a merger could evaporate in an instant for numerous reasons.

“[For example,] either one of our boards could say, ‘We’re too different,’” said Molloy. “We have no idea what path this could lead down, and all the paths could come back to exactly where we started two years ago.”

Public engagement

Although the public was invited to the Jan. 10 NYSED presentation, the purpose of the event was to provide the CCSD and MECS boards with information about what reorganization is and might look like. Therefore, there was no opportunity for a public forum or questions.

According to a message on the district website, public feedback is welcome on any/all aspects of the district, and any new information regarding the topic of reorganization will be communicated to the CCSD community.

Anyone not directly affiliated with CCSD can sign up for the recently launched ParentSquare Community Group to receive newsletters and other information, such as public notices of building projects and budget votes. Sign up at parentsquare.com/community_signups/94dc9c19-0570-4ecd-bd7a-868cb499bc46/new.