The Center Area and Monaca school districts will be able to develop a combined budget and a joint election plan this year, acting like one school district even though they will still be two.

Those were two of the clearest, most definite answers officials from the two Beaver County school districts got from state Department of Education leaders in Harrisburg last week. They addressed two of the thorniest questions facing the districts as they work toward an anticipated July 1, 2009, consolidation date.

Monaca Superintendent Mike Thomas said the two school boards will meet July 29 to go over consolidation issues in detail. The joint board meeting was scheduled Tuesday, but it was postponed so the boards could get opinions in writing from the state.

Dr. Thomas, Center Superintendent Dan Matsook, Center Area solicitor Al Maiello and Monaca board members Dennis Bloom and Pam Ronczka met with Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak and three department experts.

One question the districts had was how to handle budgeting going into consolidation. Since they plan to start merged elementary classes in August 2009, they will need to have a combined budget in place. But there are legal requirements governing the budgeting process, leading up to a required final adoption June 30. The new, combined Center Area-Monaca school board won't even exist to approve a combined budget until July 1.

"The guidance they gave us was to follow the budget guidelines, going ahead with a merged budget," Dr. Thomas said. In essence, they can develop one combined budget and approve it separately.

That answer was under the department's control; Dr. Thomas said the group learned that the election issue is not.

"Once the merger is approved by the state Board [of Education], the two school boards can draw up a plan and talk to the county board of elections," he said. "It's more of a local issue."

That likely means, again, that the two boards will operate as one before consolidation is official, with voters of the two districts combining to make one set of nominations next spring.

The boards have both expressed a desire to divide the merged district into three regions with three board members from each.

The two school boards have not, however, discussed whether they want to launch such a system in 2009.

Legal questions are to some extent being left unasked. Elections law, for instance, does not really address a situation such as the one facing the two school boards, and no two school districts have ever merged in this fashion before.

"There are no precedents," Dr. Thomas said.

But given the common-sense nature of the solution and the presumed agreement of the parties involved, the hope is that it will work without the need for new law.

The situation is similar with the budgeting process; if it's OK with the department of education, why should anyone else care? The third major issue, however -- the mercantile tax, which is levied in Center but not in Monaca -- appears to require legislative attention.

The legislature in 1988 put a freeze on passage of mercantile taxes, letting them stay in place in municipalities which had them but barring any more from instituting them.

As the law reads, the new school district created by Center Area and Monaca would not be able to levy the tax, but the districts don't want to give up the $300,000 it yields in annual revenue from Center businesses.

Dr. Thomas said state education officials are still looking at options for addressing that question, but "I think they're going to explore the possibility of that being retained in the area where it is collected already," he said.

That would presumably mean getting the legislature to tweak the law, but "I think they're going to support that position," Dr. Thomas said.

The boards also brought several other more minor issues to the state's attention -- things like strategic planning requirements, the legal process for closing schools and whether the boards can meet together via video conferencing -- which remain to be addressed.