RONDOUT VALLEY – While Rondout Valley Central School District officials aren't saying much about negotiations to allow the towns of Rochester, Rosendale, and Marbletown to take over the closed Rosendale Elementary school building, town supervisors aren't being so tight-lipped. Rosendale Supervisor Jeanne Walsh announced last week that the agreement would likely lease the building to the towns for one dollar a year, with an option to buy it outright for another dollar after eight years.

Because the school district has issued bonds against the building, selling it prematurely would result in a loss in state aid to pay those bonds back, according to school district business administrator Debra Kosinski.

At last night's school board meeting, President Chris Kelder confirmed that negotiators had a "very productive meeting" and expected a resolution soon.

Supervisors in the three towns have spoken openly about the types of uses they would like to see in the building. The town justice courts could all operate out of the library, after modifications made with money from a state fund designed for that purpose were complete. The cafeteria and gymnasium could host senior and youth programs, including hot meal services and after-school programming. Extra space might be rented out, if the towns all agree.

Rosendale's town hall is far too old and small to be home to most town offices, so residents must go to any of a number of other buildings to find the services they need.

"We have our board meetings at the community center because there isn't room for them at town hall," one council member remarked. Since the school is in Rosendale, moving town operations from Marbletown would require permission from the state. Ironically, though, the move would be a shorter one, according to Supervisor Michael Warren.

"The school is 54 feet from our town line, but 2.2 miles from our current town hall," he said. "It will actually be a longer move for most Rosendale offices."

Warren says space in Marbletown's town hall on Route 209, which was once the highway garage until the trucks became too big to fit, is very cramped.

"We have a line in the budget for an assistant for the supervisor, but we don't have the room," he said. "There's no place to have private meetings with applicants to the planning board, or for property tax exemptions."

The town also leases an office for its bookkeeper.

"People have already staked their claims in the school," Warren added.

Not everyone is as eager to move, however. Rosendale Youth Director Kathy Wade took umbrage at this reporter's suggestion that youth programs may be consolidated there, an error which resulted from the ambiguous distinction between "youth program" and "after-school program." Justice Babcock of Rochester's town court told that town board he wished he'd been consulted, and that the change of venue could be difficult for indigent defendants who have no transportation.

"I couldn't care less what an indigent person from the town of Denning has to do to pay a fine in Rochester," Supervisor Carl Chipman said recently in reaction to Babcock's remarks two months ago. "What I do care about is the law-abiding, taxpaying citizens of the town of Rochester."

Because there's a bigger distance involved, Chipman has no plans to move essential services to the old school. Rochester also doesn't have any leased space, so it will be harder to save money.

"There has to be significant savings, or expansion of services," he said, adding that he believes that consolidations like these are the natural result of the state's tax-cap legislation, which limits increases in spending but does nothing to limit increases in unfunded mandate costs, such as from elections and the Safety Net welfare program.

"If I can cut costs on mandates, I will, because otherwise I have to cut programs people care about," like the transfer station or the youth program, he said. The town is definitely interested in file storage, and will explore other options.

The slow negotiations made the town supervisors reluctant to apply for a shared-services grant, but state officials convinced them to do so even with an incomplete plan. That could open the door to as much as $600,000 for upgrading the building, which, as Warren pointed out, was "built to operate 180 days a year," and will need to be bolstered for a lot more activity.

"We will run 360 days a year, from 6:30 in the morning until 11 at night," he said.

However, the supervisor added, "It's up to the school district if they're serious about us using the building, or not. Towns don't move their offices around much, and we can't sign a lease with a 30-day out clause."