How citizen action plus legal mandate led to tax savings in school administration
Consolidation of (county) Educational Service Regions

A PROGRAM for merging small governmental areas into larger ones, with expected tax savings, will show initial results this summer after six years of preparation. This is the consolidation of Educational Service Regions. Citizen action and legal mandate provided the mechanism for the reform, but it could not have been implemented without the backing of the officials most concerned, the elected superintendents of the service regions.

Educational Service Regions replaced the 102 county school units formerly administered by elected county superintendents. The superintendents are still elected, but the term "county" has been discarded for the new name, Educational Service Region.

Effective August 4, the existing 102 Educational Service Regions (one for each of the state's 102 counties) are being reduced to 78 regions. Effective in August 1979, the number will be further reduced to about 50 if the mandate of the law enacted in 1969 is unchanged.

This law requires a minimum population for each service region of 16,000 after August 4, 1975, and a minimum of 33,000 beginning in August 1979. The August dates were chosen because that is when the elected superintendents begin their four-year terms of office.

The first phase will merge 42 counties into 18 regions (see sidebar). This leaves 60 single-county regions with populations of 16,000 or more. In the second phase, about 40 of these will be involved in mergers, and some of the 18 regions in the first group will have to consolidate further to meet the 33,000 minimum. (For the text of the law, see Illinois Revised Statutes, chapter 122, articles 3 and 3A.)

"The regional consolidations effect a considerable tax saving," says Robert R. Miller, Charleston. As the Coles County superintendent, he was a dynamic figure in the merger of dark, Coles, Cumberland and Moultrie counties and was elected superintendent of the new region. This saving is particularly evident for the state, which pays the salaries of the superintendent and a first assistant in each region.

"In the case of our four-county merger, the saving will be $99,000," according to Miller. "The positions of three county superintendents and three assistants are eliminated. For the 18 merged regions, the saving will be $750,000. The saving in local property taxes will be less, but material. In our merger, we will eliminate overhead in operating three county offices. The space they have been using can be used for other courthouse business."

Miller recognizes the merger is not without drawbacks. One of these is "a lack of closeness to the people in the local school districts. We plan to offset this by the presence of either myself or a representative of this office in each county of the region on specified days." Miller will retain his present headquarters in the Coles County courthouse at Charleston.

This rare example of bureaucratic shrinkage was maneuvered from within in 1969 by the officeholders affected. House Bill 1470's chief sponsor was Rep. (now Sen.) Sam M. Vadalabene (D., Edwardsville), and it had the support of the Illinois Association of County Superintendents of Schools. H.B. 1470 became law as Public Act 76-735.

Howard Brown, Macon County region superintendent, who recalls that not all of the county superintendents favored the bill but a majority did, assumes the presidency of the superintendents' organization July 16 of this year. He succeeds Boyd Bucher, Will County region superintendent. Bucher's predecessor. Dr. George H. Otrich, Union County region superintendent, took a leading role in the consolidation movement.

The law provided for each county superintendent to appoint a fivemember nonpartisan citizens' committee to consider the advisability of consolidation with neighboring counties. When committees favored a merger, they petitioned the county boards of school trustees (an elected group) in the affected counties. The boards were then required to call a public hearing to be held jointly with the other counties to consider the proposal. If the school trustees approved, the state superintendent issued the merger order.

Fifteen of the 18 new regions resulted from this voluntary process, but in three cases it was necessary to fall back on the legal authority, vested in the state superintendent of public instruction after April 1, 1973, to order mergers. Involved were the Clinton-Washington, Hamilton-Jefferson, and Gallatin-Hardin-Pope-Saline regions. The official action was taken for technical reasons—to avoid the need for additional hearings when changes were made in initial proposals for these regions.

Educators have been in the forefront for more than 20 years in combining small units into larger ones. W. A. Bozarth, who retires in August after serving 32 years as Douglas County superintendent, was an Illinois delegate to the 1955 White House Conference on Education. He recalls that merger of local school districts was a leading topic at the conference. Illinois in 1952 had 3,482 local school districts; today the state has 1,045. 

July 1975 /Illinois Issues /203