Will Dexter’s schools annex Whitmore Lake’s schools? Not anytime soon.

“The discussion was put on hold,” says Dexter Community Schools superintendent Chris Timmis. “The cost model really doesn’t work. There are significant start-up costs, including merging infrastructure and technology. Plus, we have 15 percent fund equity, and Whitmore Lake has less than 1 percent. If we blend the two, we’re not in as good a position. And we need that money to make cash flow so we’re not borrowing for payroll and paying interest on that.

“We don’t want to abandon the idea,” Timmis continues, “but all that needs to be addressed.” The big unknown is how much the state would be willing to kick in to assist the merger costs. “We need $1.8 million for three years’ additional support, and, if the state doesn’t do anything, it’s not going to go forward.”

Talk of annexation started last summer in Dexter, almost as soon as Ann Arbor and Whitmore Lake began discussing a possible merger. “I can’t tell you how many calls I got,” says Timmis. Because that merger would have required each district’s voters to take on the debts of the other, it went to a vote in November–and, though it passed handily in Whitmore Lake, Ann Arbor voters turned thumbs down. Almost immediately, Timmis says, his phone started ringing again with people asking, “‘Is Dexter going to look at it?'”

Whitmore Lake wants to join another school district because its enrollment has shrunk precipitously. “When I left in ’07 we had just over 1,300 students,” says Scott Menzel, the former Whitmore Lake superintendent who today heads the Washtenaw Intermediate School District. “Now they have 949 students. When people lost their jobs because of Pfizer leaving or the recession, a lot of families had to leave the area.”

Menzel sees advantages for Dexter in a merger. It would give Dexter expanded capacity, particularly at the new Whitmore Lake High School. And the way the current proposal is structured, Dexter would not take on Whitmore Lake’s debt for the $33 million school.

Timmis is measured. “We’re still working on the exact upsides,” he says. “But from a business perspective, if you have the potential to get at least $400,000 more a year in revenue and take on $60 million in assets that you never have to pay for, you have to at least look at it.”

Dexter’s huge growth spurt kept its enrollment stable at 3,550 students, but the district still feels many of the same financial strains as Whitmore Lake. “We’ve spent a decade going backwards in terms of dollars from the state,” Timmis says. “Our employees have taken pay cuts. They’re paying more for insurance. They haven’t seen raises in a decade. But you can only take from employees for so long before you have to start cutting from kids.”

Whitmore Lake currently gets $7,251 per pupil from the state, while Dexter gets $7,569. Calculating rates for combined districts is complex, but Menzel believes that, in this case, all students would get the Dexter subsidy. The state has some money to assist in combining districts, and Menzel thinks Dexter “would likely have a strong application” for a one-time grant.

Since so much of a small town’s identity is wrapped up in its schools, would annexation hurt each community’s sense of itself?

“I don’t think the identity would be negatively impacted,” says Menzel. “Dexter would keep the Whitmore Lake buildings open and not change their names … In sports, they plan to keep their football team and remain in their conference.”

“Whitmore Lake has made it very clear that they want annexation if and only if their schools have their own identity,” adds Dexter school board president Michael Wander. “And there is no desire on the part of Dexter to lose that identity.”

Whitmore Lake’s voters have already indicated they’re willing to sacrifice their independence to keep their schools open. But while Whitmore Lake voters would again have to approve any annexation proposal, Dexter’s wouldn’t.

“In the district that’s proposing annexation, the board votes,” Menzel explains. “In the district that’s proposed to be annexed [Whitmore Lake], the community votes, because they’re giving up their entire district and turning over all their assets. The exception is when there is a mutual assumption of debt as there was in Ann Arbor.”

Former Dexter school board candidate Shawn Letwin believes the community should vote nonetheless–so he’s leading a group called No Annexation without Representation. “We have seven people who meet on a regular basis,” he says, and more than 800 members on Facebook.

Letwin won’t say how his group feels about annexation. “What we want is the community and not members of the board to vote on it.”

But Timmis says that can’t happen–not even as an advisory vote. “There is no legal mechanism,” he says. “We’ve checked with multiple attorneys, and the attorney general has ruled on these things consistently. It’s definitive.”