“Regionalization,” a New York State Education Department project that asks schools to consider partnering up to achieve savings and efficiencies, has garnered considerable controversy in UpIsland communities that view the initiative as the early stages of forced consolidation.
But according to school officials here, the South Fork is ahead of the game. Individual districts are already sharing services extensively, they say, and the regionalization initiative is getting far less pushback locally.
According to David Wicks, chief operating officer of the Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services, regionalization is misunderstood. “It’s really only asking districts to think about how they are sharing services or if they could do things additionally that would be more efficient,” he said this week. “It’s not requiring them to do anything. . . . The hope is that some folks will find opportunities to be able to do that work to benefit their students and their communities.”
The East Hampton School District, for example, operates a transportation depot where neighboring districts like Springs and Montauk take their school buses for state inspections and other services. This saves the fuel, wear and tear, and bus driver overtime that was formerly incurred when the smaller districts had their buses inspected and serviced in the western Suffolk community of Babylon.
In addition, East Hampton makes lunches for students at the Springs School and Amagansett School, which do not operate cafeteria programs, ensuring that students who do not bring lunch from home can have a nutritious meal at school. Springs, according to its superintendent, Nancy Carney, is looking to expand that agreement now that the children are eating lunch in a makeshift cafeteria housed in the small gym, rather than in their classrooms.
East Hampton also shares its business official, payroll clerk, and facilities manager with Springs. Its maintenance crew helps mow the lawn at the Amagansett School. In the past, Amagansett and Montauk have shared the cost of busing students to a BOCES program in Westhampton Beach. Students across the region who go to private schools often ride buses together.
A bit farther west, the Sag Harbor School District operates full busing programs for the region’s two smallest districts, Wainscott and Sagaponack, and helps Bridgehampton with busing as well. It shares the cost of a bus mechanic and fuel with the Southampton School District.
“I believe that what’s happening on the South Fork in many ways could absolutely serve as a model, or at least as an example of how it can be done successfully,” Mr. Wicks said. “It leads to more resources able to be spent bringing programs to students, and that’s ultimately why we’re there.”
Full-scale consolidation, has of course been studied on the South Fork in the past, though not for quite some time. In 1998, a study produced by Dowling College, aimed at exploring the feasibility of consolidating East Hampton and its feeder districts, stopped short of recommending full mergers, nor did it recommend the creation of a central high school district. In 2013, New York State rejected a regional bid for grant funding put forth by Springs, Montauk, East Hampton, Sag Harbor, Southampton, and Tuckahoe that would have allowed for a study to take place, and the consortium missed a subsequent deadline to reapply. Also in 2013, voters in the Southampton School District rejected a plan to consolidate with Tuckahoe, which is currently exploring building a high school in partnership with the Shinnecock Indian Nation.
The 1998 study, however, proved prescient. Its chief conclusion: “In this era of declining financial resources and added educational requirements, districts need to explore new and creative methods for delivering instructional and support services in a more cost-effective manner . . . we believe that the districts should seriously consider exploring various options for shared services. We believe that even outside of a reorganization the districts can realize significant savings through functional consolidation.”
Among its specific recommendations were combined business administrators, food service operations, buildings and grounds work, and private school transportation — all of which are now taking place, 26 years later.
“My philosophy and belief on the shared services, which started with busing, is that it was practical and a no-brainer for any and all of us,” said Adam Fine, the East Hampton superintendent. “We might be doing the lion’s share now for the sending districts we’re in a relationship with . . . but I view it as a two-way relationship. I don’t know, one, two, three years down the road, things I might need from other districts.”
Of the state’s regionalization push, “we see that message out here as the only way for us to survive,” Mr. Fine said. “The revenue and personnel that we’re able to gain from this is a win for us, and the sending districts are getting savings, too.”
“We can share these people’s expertise and talent,” said Sam Schneider, East Hampton’s assistant superintendent for business, “and other districts helping pay for it is a benefit to our taxpayers, who have to pay for those services regardless, so why not share that burden?”
Full consolidation is hard to achieve, according to Jennifer Buscemi, Sag Harbor’s business official. “Most of the school district budgets are made up of salaries and benefits. Real savings can only be achieved by a reduction in staff,” she wrote in an email to The Star. “Most of the very small districts on the East End do not have much staff they can reduce.”
Tax rates come into play, too. According to the 1998 Dowling consolidation study, only Springs stood to achieve lower taxes, while Amagansett taxpayers were projected to pay nearly double. An increased tax rate was one reason why the 2013 merger vote in Southampton and Tuckahoe failed.
“Most voters would not approve a plan unless they see a positive impact on their tax rates,” Ms. Buscemi said. “I don’t see how a plan would receive voter approval if it negatively affects the tax rate in one school district and positively affects the tax rate of the other.”
Sharing services, rather than fully consolidating, allows districts to save money while maintaining “their charm and their strengths and their own culture,” said Joshua Odom, the Montauk School District superintendent, who formerly worked in Springs and East Hampton. “They’re all very different . . . but everyone wants to see the students be successful, so that’s the right mind-set to have.”
The 1998 consolidation study also explored the possibility of a central high school district, creating a new taxing district for homeowners and taking high school offerings out of the control of East Hampton and putting it in the hands of the new district, with its own school board and its own budget. Jack Perna, the now retired former superintendent of the Montauk School, had been the chief proponent of that idea.
“The complaint was, it would add another level of bureaucracy because you’d be creating another district,” Mr. Perna said this week. “However, it would give another group of people another layer of control.”
He has always wondered, he said, “why we so separate like this. It’s not fair, really. I agree with the Board of Regents that something should happen, but if they’re going to leave it up to the residents of each district, no one’s going to vote for that. The laws have to change, but the lawmakers probably don’t want to lose the votes.”
What’s next for shared services on the South Fork? Many administrators would like it to be a centralized facility for special education, which the region has lacked since the Child Development Center of the Hamptons, a charter school, closed in June 2016.
“One of the things we’re talking about as superintendents is really looking for space for special-education programs,” Ms. Carney, the Springs superintendent, said. “Right now, for students that have really significant needs, we have to bus kids often to Westhampton or farther,” which is not ideal. “We are looking to create a special-education department that all the districts can access for those students. It’s something we’re all very interested in. Even if BOCES ran the program at one of our schools, it would be great.”
The last time a consolidation effort was successful was the creation of the Eastport-South Manor School District some 25 years ago, when New York State funded most of the cost of building a high school for two smaller districts as they voted to merge.
But the idea of consolidation continues to surface every now and then, said State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. Eastport-South Manor was “the exception to the rule” that most efforts to centralize schools will fall short. He supports the expansion of shared services.
“Schools tend to be a center of the community,” Mr. Thiele said. “They are a common element that give communities an identity, and people are unwilling to give up that identity and home rule. . . . As long as these are local, home-rule decisions, and not mandated from Albany, the concept of shared services is something East End districts have always shown a willingness to do, and it makes sense.”