Aug 10, 2011 By Amy Revakheraldstandard.Com 3 min read

State Rep. Timothy Mahoney, D-South Union Twp., filed petitions Tuesday with the Fayette County Election Bureau seeking to have the question of county school district administration consolidation placed on the November ballot.

Mahoney is seeking for voters to decide if they are in favor of consolidating the administrations and school boards of the county’s six school districts.

If the referendum passes with a majority vote, the onus would fall on the school districts to implement the consolidation.

Mahoney said the identities of the individual school districts would remain, and he intends to hold various public meetings to discuss the plan before the Nov. 8 municipal election.

He said he will be “more transparent in this endeavor than anything else undertaken in this county.”

Mahoney said he believes taxes would be lowered by cost savings and everyone would work toward educating children.

An independent study on the potential benefits of administrative consolidation will be completed and its contents revealed to the public within 30 days. Mahoney said if the study isn’t done within that time frame, as required by law, he will withdraw the referendum request.

Mahoney said he is willing to see if the results of this study, conducted by acknowledged experts in their field, will corroborate the estimate that our school districts could see a 15- to 20-percent cost savings by going this route.

“This is going to benefit teachers who will be put on a level playing field with salaries. We have to act like one county, we have to help the have nots and the haves. Education will be equal,” Mahoney said. “There’s got to be a common denominator to educate kids the right way where we can share our resources.”

Under the plan, there would be one school board, which would be elected countywide, and one central administration, which would be selected by the school board members. All the county’s schools would use the same cirriculum and have the same standards.

Mahoney said because of the low performance on tests of county schools, the time to improve education as a joint effort has come. He said cost savings must be pursued locally because the subsidy from the state keeps getting whittled away.

“It’s no one’s individual mistake. We drove ourselves this way and now we’re at a dead end and it’s time to change direction,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney submitted 2,600 signatures with the request. In a letter attached to the petitions, Mahoney said based on the votes recorded in last fall’s election, the required petition threshold would be 1,692 signatures, which he far exceeded. An additional 20 petitions, each with 70 lines on them, are still being circulated, Mahoney said.

The question is “Do you support the dissolution of the school boards and administrations of the Fayette County public schools and the creation of a countywide school board and administration to oversee the daily operations and finances of each independent school district?”

Anyone wishing to challenge the request has seven days to do so.

While he has heard there may be challenges filed, Mahoney said he doesn’t understand why anyone would want to take the right away from the voters to make such a decision for the future of the county.

“I wouldn’t understand why anybody wouldn’t want this. How can we deny these 2,600 voting Fayette County property taxpayers a voice to do the right thing?” Mahoney asked.