"It ties in with property values," he said.
School district taxes tends to be the largest portion of an upstate New York homeowner's tax bill.
Though schools were the one area where consolidation was definitely opposed, respondents had more support for changes in some services than others. Things like public transportation, road maintenance and parks and recreational programming are prime candidates for mergers, but the citizenry was more or less split on consolidations in fire and police services. These are the services citizens tend to say they value most, according to the poll's findings, and their ranking breaks down similarly among supporters and opponents of consolidation.
In fact, the survey found there to be little outside connection between those advocating for change and those against it.
"Demography and party don't drive these answers," Miringoff said. "What drives this is position on local government."
The survey is available at www.nylocalgov.org.""
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