Published: January 28, 2008 11:31 pm      

Taylor no stranger to consolidation talks

Committee currently studying future of troubled corporation

Officials in the Taylor Community Schools may have to make a decision about consolidation before the state legislature decides if it will order mergers based on the recommendation of the Kernan-Shepard commission.

The commission recommended that schools with fewer than 2,000 students be consolidated.

However, consolidation has been discussed several times at Taylor in recent years, especially in 2006, when the school applied for an emergency excessive tax levy, stating it would run out of money to pay teachers by fall 2007.

The corporation asked for $1.7 million and received half that amount, given over a two-year period. This year is the second and final year for the additional money.

Former superintendent Ronald Mayes, who retired in August, said the levy gave the corporation two years to solve its financial problems.

Wednesday, a newly-formed Taylor community advisory committee conducted its first meeting, charged with the job of making cost-saving recommendations to the school board.

Interim Superintendent Bob Myers said it is possible the committee will recommend consolidating with another corporation.

“This committee’s charge will be, by the time the board hires a new school superintendent ... to create a set of recommendations on the long-term solvency of the Taylor Community School Corp.” he said.

Dan Shockley, a retired Kokomo-Center school administrator who lives in the Taylor district, was selected by the committee as its chairman. He said right now, the group’s focus is on “trying to assess where we are” financially and educationally.

He said there has been no discussion of consolidation at this point.

Myers said the board will look at the corporation’s staffing, finances and other information going back to 1991, the last time Taylor was under state control.

He said if the board decides to consolidate, it would have to find another school corporation willing to merge. Myers said he does not know of any recent discussion, official or unofficial, with other districts about merging.