Local superintendent supports state ESD merger proposal

Gov. Ted Kulongoski wants to merge several education service districts (ESDs), reducing the number from the current 20 to no more than 12 -- and perhaps as few as nine.

Dennis Dempsey, superintendent of the High Desert ESD (Crook and Deschutes counties), supports that idea. Dempsey, who was the principal of Sisters High School from 1992 to 1999, has been the local ESD superintendent since then. He still lives in Sisters, but his office is in Redmond, near the airport.

"Our board and I are supportive of it (the merger proposal) because we think there are some efficiencies that could be achieved," Dempsey told The Nugget. "Of course, we're the biggest ESD on this side of the mountains so our assumption is that some of the smaller ESDs would be merged with us... Jefferson County, Lake or Wheeler..."

He acknowledged that many obstacles stand in the way of the governor's plan, however -- the same obstacles that sunk a similar plan recommended by a legislative task force in 2000. The governor's consolidation proposal is just the latest version of an idea that has come up in several past Legislatures.

One big problem is the popularity of local control among those who operate, or are served by, the smaller service districts that form the most logical targets for consolidation. The strength of that feeling is reinforced by geography on the east side of the Cascades.

Shrinking the number of ESDs would expand the boundaries of those that emerged from the process, increasing "the windshield time" necessary for providing services to schools far away from the central offices.

"One legislator said there should be one ESD for this side of the mountains," Dempsey said. "Well, for Pete's sake. How could somebody cover the whole east side of the state?"

Besides, Dempsey concedes, mergers alone wouldn't really save much money. The services provided would cost roughly the same regardless of the number of providing districts. The state might save the salaries of a few superintendents and business managers, but that wouldn't amount to a great deal. (See story page 5).

Greater savings would be realized, however, if mergers were accompanied by the ESDs' assuming more responsibility for functions now performed by individual school districts, Dempsey said.

Kulongoski has already talked about letting ESDs become the regional business and bookkeeping managers for their client school districts.

Some of this type of centralization has already taken place. For example, Dempsey's High Desert ESD handles all of the daily assignments of substitute teachers for the five school districts in its main territory -- Sisters, Bend-La Pine, Redmond, Crook County and Brothers. The ESD also takes care of all the payroll and bookkeeping chores associated with subs. And this year, at the request of four of the participating districts, the ESD also began interviewing and hiring the subs for those districts, eliminating a lot of duplicated effort.

Sisters did not join in that service.

But realistically, Dempsey concedes, centralizing services also faces opposition. Centralizing business services as the governor suggests could take away "some of the best jobs" available in the towns housing the administrative offices of small school districts.

Dempsey gives the governor credit for a positive move in laying the groundwork for the 2005 Legislature's discussion of ESD mergers.

"The governor's office and ODE (the Oregon Department of Education) asked our statewide association to come up with a proposal, which I think is great," he said. "The superintendents have actually created a draft list of core services, (saying) that if you're gonna be an ESD you will provide these services to school districts."

If that idea were accepted, Dempsey explains, it would lead to the conclusion that "there's going to be a natural size that an ESD is going to have to be to do (the core services) effectively."

Dempsey is well aware that many smaller ESDs have no desire to be swallowed by neighbors. He says that over the years his board members and board members in adjacent Jefferson County, which has a small ESD of its own, have had numerous discussions about a possible merger.

"But the truth is, they've told us that they like having the ability to decide how they spend their money. One of the comments was, 'We don't want Bend telling us what to do.'" Bend schools contain more than half the students in the five districts of the High Desert ESD.