OBSERVER Photo Forestville remains in the town of Hanover, it just no longer has a village government.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz has an uncomfortable message that has been trumpeted in our newspaper for years. School districts with declining enrollment need to find ways to save your money and work better together.

“People don’t really care who the superintendent is,” Poloncarz said in The Buffalo News before his State of the County address earlier this month. “They just want to know their kids are being educated well. Even if you don’t reduce taxes, more money would be spent on direct educational costs. If you knew that, wouldn’t you at least want to have a discussion about it?”

Poloncarz’s targeting of school mergers is a noble idea, especially when you consider state Gov. Andrew Cuomo has taken to task the high number municipalities and special districts across upstate. The effort has seen some success locally with the dissolution of the villages of Forestville and Cherry Creek.

Overall, however, it’s been a fairly unsuccessful road that is often met by voter resistance. Consider what happened in Depew in January 2017. Voters there approved keeping the village by a 3,006 to 1,165 margin. Referendums like these are not based on dollars and sense — they are based on emotion.

You can throw out the facts when it comes to merging schools as well.

Panama and Clymer schools had a similar negative result last December. It was not even close in Clymer as district residents there thoroughly defeated continuing to study and talk about merging the two districts. Now, those Clymer taxpayers are facing a major tax increase.

That is no surprise for those of us who are backers of more efficiencies in education. Small schools offer very little in terms of diversity of programs and courses. Larger schools, however, have a lot more flexibility as often state aid is based on number of students.

Cuomo has a heavy say in how school aid gets distributed. He can also reduce aid to smaller schools or hand down an edict telling districts with less than 800 students to look at combining.

But he has shied away from education. That bothers Poloncarz — and many others who see the benefits of school consolidations.

One other item that bears watching in Erie County in the near future is how its county Water Authority and Legislature moves forward. The Buffalo News reported last month its executive director is in line for a $400,000 payout if the county Democrats, which now have the majority there, oust Republican Earl Jann Jr. from the job.

His only qualification for the position? He was loyal to the GOP.

Why Chautauqua County needs to watch this is simple: we are in the early stages of a regional water district, which has been thoroughly backed by this newspaper. But as actions to our north point out, when politics is involved, things can get muddied.

Which leads us back to Poloncarz. While he’s correct to take on the fractured schools in his county, what about all the other municipal entities that exist in Erie County? Why didn’t he take a stronger lead on Depew or by getting other towns or villages in his county to consolidate?

Probably because he has to work with them — and he needs some allies when pushing an agenda. He won’t need that assistance from schools or special districts.

There is the political factor.

John D’Agostino is the OBSERVER publisher. Send comments to jdagostino@observertoday.com or call 366-3000, ext. 401.