Topeka ? Superintendents from four north-central Kansas school districts urged senators Tuesday to continue financial incentives for local schools to consolidate with neighbors.

The incentive is designed to allow two merging districts to receive the same state aid they would have received had they remained separate districts. Legislators first approved it in 2002 but the state isn’t promising the extra dollars past the 2007-08 school year. A bill before the Senate Education Committee would add another year of the incentive.

Superintendents said the bill helps districts faced with declining enrollments make the tough choice to merge operations and still provide a quality education for students.

“Consolidation should be a governmental activity that creates winners in the process and not taxpayers that are penalized with added financial burdens,” said Don Wells, superintendent of Haddam and Cuba.

Wells said the bill would allow the districts to merge and not penalize taxpayers through a decrease in state aid. Lower state aid means the difference in revenues would have to come from higher property taxes or program cuts.

Legislators took no action on the bill Tuesday, but are expected to debate it in the coming weeks.

Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood, said a deadline for the financial incentives is important. Otherwise, districts could put off the decision to consolidate for years at the expense of taxpayers and educational quality. Vratil also cautioned senators to think carefully before expanding the incentives to cover state payments for bond issues approved before the merger.

Some senators suggested a law to require only those taxpayers who originally approved a bond issue to continue paying the bill without raising taxes for the entire new district.

Haddam’s school board has approved merging with neighboring Washington, while Cuba wants to merge with Belleville. The four districts represent about 1,000 students and more than 900 square miles along the Kansas-Nebraska border. Each district has seen precipitous declines in enrollment over the past decade.

Wells said the state finance formula, which allocates money per pupil, doesn’t work for declining districts, and consolidation is the only option.

The four districts have public votes March 7 to approve the merger proposals. If adopted, the four districts would become two July 1. Two other districts, White Rock and Mankato in Jewell County, also are merging July 1.

A seventh district, Prairie Heights in Jennings, will end operations at the end of the school year, dropping the number of districts in the state to 299. If the three mergers are approved by voters, that figure drops to 296.

Jim Hayes, a lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards, supported the bill. He said it would give local boards throughout the state another tool when deciding to merge, and noted more contraction is in the works.

“You hear rumors all the time,” Hayes said. “There’s a number of them and there’s going to be more every year.”

He said several districts have explored cooperative agreements to share buildings, but financial incentives would help them take the final step.

Wells and the other superintendents argue that voluntary consolidation, with incentives, is better than the forced mergers that took place in the 1960s. Then, Kansas had several thousand school districts that were forced to consolidate in a statewide effort to make curriculum uniform and improve overall education quality.

That effort left many hurt feelings as schools closed throughout Kansas – and those feelings still permeate communities today.

“All recognize the value of preserving the dignity of those involved,” Wells said.