More Finger Lakes districts looking to merge?

South Seneca Elementary

Belatedly waking up to shrinking enrollments and tapped out taxpayers, more Finger Lakes school districts are considering consolidation.  We recently noted discussion of a  Seneca County-wide consolidation.  This morning the Ithaca Journal reports another long rumored merger has moved closer to fruition:

Trumansburg Central School District officials are considering merger and resource sharing with the neighboring South Seneca Central School District.

Spurred by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's public push for consolidation of smaller school districts in New York, Trumansburg School Board President Douglas Ann Land and Superintendent Paula Hurley said at last week's school board meeting that they met with South Seneca representatives two weeks ago and began discussion of a possible merger of the districts and, in the nearer term, cooperation on joint services.

Struggling Finger Lakes families are forced to support way too many redundant school administrators.  Last week Governor Andy Cuomo, of all people, shined a light on superintendents' six figure compensation packages.  Consolidation will reduce administrative costs, starting at the top.

During the past decade, Central New York's dwindling private sector workforce has had to produce more while earning less.  Since the private sector is the ultimate source of all government revenue, its time for the public sector to get on the program.  Our government-run schools must learn to produce better results at lower cost, or get out of the way.