This base map from the Kansas Association of School Boards shows possible realigned school district boundaries based on House Bill 2504. One possible outcome is that Baldwin and Eudora school districts would be merged into a single district, highlighted in orange.

School officials and board members in Baldwin City and Eudora will pay close attention to hearings today in the Kansas House that could greatly change the nature of two Douglas County school districts.

The House Education Committee will have a hearing at 1:30 p.m. on House Bill 2504, which would reduce the number of the state’s school districts through consolidation.

The bill states that in counties with more than 10,000 students, such as Douglas County, the Kansas State Board of Education will realign districts so all districts have an enrollment of at least 1,500 students. Districts in counties with 10,000 or fewer students would be realigned to have only one school district.

With an enrollment of 1,437, the Baldwin district falls just short of the 1,500 threshold. At its current rate of growth it would not top the 1,500-student threshold in the foreseeable future, Baldwin Superintendent Paul Dorathy said.

The Kansas Association of School Boards prepared a report on the probable realignments that would be ordered should the bill become law. That report proposed that Baldwin be aligned with Eudora, a district with 1,743 students.

Because the bill is still in the early stages of the legislative process, his board has yet to give the consequences any consideration, said Eudora Superintendent Steve Splichal. However, he said the board and the community were aware of the bill and had concerns.

The bill’s goal is to eliminate administrative costs, and it provides more specifics about that aspect of future consolidated districts than it does about how the newly formed districts would be governed, Splichal said. The bill would cap the number of administrators and supervisory service employees of a newly consolidated district at 120 percent of the number employed by the larger district before realignment.

The provision would force a newly consolidated Baldwin-Eudora school district to release one superintendent, as well as supervisors in such areas as finance, transportation, maintenance and information technology, Splichal said.

The bill doesn’t address what the consolidated district’s governing body would look like. Dorathy and Splichal said a new board could be established to represent the consolidated district, but it was also possible existing boards of education could be left in place with administrative staff reporting to two or more boards.

“I don’t know how that would work,” Splichal said.

Dorathy and Splichal said other concerns include deposition of reserve funds that district taxpayers have built over the years and which taxpayers would be responsible for existing debt. Dorathy notes both Baldwin and Eudora currently have considerable existing debt from construction of new schools in the last two decades.

The biggest concern of Dorathy and Splichal would be the change in the relationships the Baldwin and Eudora school districts now enjoy with their communities. The districts each serve a single community, with which each is closely identified.

“What the Baldwin and Eudora school districts do is much aligned with the views and expectations of their communities,” Splichal said. “This would sort of take away that locally determined consensus that drives decisions.”

That lack of consensus could hamper progress on tough decisions like bond issues, especially if the need was driven by growth in only one community, Dorathy said.

“It’s hard enough for the board to come to decisions on tough questions when all our board members are from Baldwin,” he said. “Throw in another community, and it could become real difficult to collaborate on tough decisions. It can create real problems with local control.”

Dorathy and Splichal agree the bill’s passage would lead to the elimination of schools in rural communities as combined county boards looked to save money.

“I think that would be a concern of school districts out west,” Splichal said. “Schools are the lifeblood of their communities. They determine what people do on Friday nights, when they go to musicals — everything. That would all go away.”

It’s that concern that gives him confidence the bill will go nowhere this election year, said Sen. Tom Holland, a Democrat who represents Baldwin City and Eudora in the Kansas Senate

“I don’t think it gets done this year,” he said. “There’s too many rural legislators out there worried about putting something in place that will be less desirable for their school districts. It would be another millstone around their necks.”