Saving taxpayer money, drawing more people and business to the Shenango Valley and doing what’s best for kids in the area drove school board members from five districts to attend a meeting Wednesday where “consolidation” maybe became less of a dirty word.

“When people hear that word, they get all excited,” Sharpsville school board member Gerry Hanley said. “We have to convince people to think of the positives.”

Sharon City School District board member Christopher Gavin for the past two years has brought up the issue several times but it hasn’t gotten very far.

Now, he’s proposing Sharon, Farrell, Hermitage, Sharpsville and West Middlesex school directors mull over the idea of having a study done to see if merging two or more districts is feasible.

“I think there’s a good possibility it may work,” Gavin said. “I don’t have the answers. I’m trying to ask the questions and get the answers.”

West Middlesex school board President Tom Hubert, who in 2007 started the Mercer County School Directors Association to look into sharing services, said he thinks the move makes sense and would save money. But it could be a hard move politically.

Gavin’s calculations, which involve a consolidated district using the same per-pupil spending as Butler Area School District because it’s about the same size in number of school buildings and students, show a potential savings of about $10 million a year. Every district except Sharpsville might stand to save money, Gavin found.

Those figures aren’t necessarily accurate, he said, but seem to be enough reason to study a little more.

“I’m just wondering if a united school district would help bring business in,” Gavin said.

The heavy industry that once was booming in the valley is not coming back, Gavin said, and something needs to be done to make the area more attractive. Hermitage school board member Dr. Morren Greenburg noted that the Shenango Valley competes with Cranberry Township, Butler County, and Canfield, Ohio, for business in the region.

Gavin noted that last December nearly 500 houses were for sale in the Shenango Valley and the Pennsylvania Department of Education projects a loss of students at every valley school in the next nine years.

“I love this area. I hate to see it dying,” Gavin said.

Gavin suggested potential savings could be seen in 10 areas: administration, alternative education, athletics, books, cafeterias, classroom supplies, facility expenses, health care and instructional and special education costs.

The bulk of a district’s money is spent on salaries and benefits, Gavin said. And those costs are going up as people are leaving. That means raising taxes and that’s something nobody wants to do, he said.

A consolidated district would likely mean going with the lowest real estate tax rate of the individual districts, so revenues could be lower than they are currently, Gavin said.