Only two administrators run the Cranbury school district: a principal and a vice principal at the municipality's sole school.

It's not a bad ratio, when you consider that the district has 600 students and that the K-8 school was designated as a Blue Ribbon school, noted Board of Education President Joan Rue. But single-school districts like Cranbury are now facing pressure from the state to consolidate.

Local school districts concede that it sounds good on paper: Eliminate 23 school districts that have no schools, and order the 172 districts with a single school to consolidate services. But they warn that the move really does little to relieve the burden on taxpayers.

The move toward consolidation was pushed by Gov. James E. McGreevey in his State of the State speech Tuesday. He faulted administrative costs for driving up property taxes, and suggested the school districts follow the example of municipal governments in consolidating services.

Three years ago property taxes in 249 towns dropped after town leaders agreed to a state program that pushed schools and local governments to reduce expenses by sharing services.

McGreevey now wants to eliminate 23 school districts so small they have students but no actual schools. The school tax bill there includes the costs of running the district as well as paying the tab to educate students at other schools.

That's waste, McGreevey contends. And wasteful, too, is money being spent on administrative costs at 173 other districts that each have just one school to operate, but a full administrative staff.

While the move may affect some taxpayers in limited areas, the state is not offering significant property-tax relief across the board, said Harry Delgado, president of the Middlesex County School Boards Association and a member of the South Brunswick Board of Education.

Picking on a small but high-performing district like Cranbury is poorly thought-out and ultimately shortsighted, Rue said. Not all small school districts are the same, she said, adding that Cranbury has received awards for its educational programs. According to the New Jersey School Boards Association, 42 of the 146 one-school elementary districts have received state or federal awards for educational achievement.

"I think we happen to have been an easy target," she said. "He's not the first administrator to impose lots of mandates without any funding."

Cranbury is the only district in Middlesex County to have a single school. Helmetta has a district but no schools, sending all its students to Spotswood.

School districts already share services with each other, as well as with municipal government, Delgado said.

"It makes sense for us to buy salt together. It makes sense for us to buy paper together. It makes sense for us to buy in bulk," he said.

According to the New Jersey School Boards Association, the number of school district administrators statewide has barely increased since 1989, although student enrollment has risen 27 percent. Of the 172 districts with a single school, 146 have a sole elementary school, while the remainder are regional high schools, and vocational or special services districts.

"To call them bureaucracies is to give the impression they're top-heavy. At most they have a part-time person who pays the bills and that's it. There's really not much of an expense there," said Frank Belluscio, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association.

A Rutgers University study in 2000 found that approximately three of every four school districts in the state cooperated at some level.

In the 23 districts with students but no schools, voters have the power to dissolve the local administration and choose to join a regional district with a neighboring town.

"There must be some reason why the people in those communities want to be nonoperating districts," Belluscio said.

The state once did more to encourage towns and schools to combine services.

One program doled out tax credits to residents when local governments regionalized services. In 2001, its budget was $19.4 million and 249 towns reported some savings. The next year, the McGreevey administration cut the budget to $8.7 million, and 14 towns took advantage. The next year, the money was gone.

Another state effort provided grants to help local governments study such cooperative efforts. Its $2.2 million also was eliminated.

McGreevey was forced to cut those programs and others like it because the state budget was in a perilous situation in which revenues declined and expenses rose, said spokeswoman Juliet Johnson.

If the economy improves, McGreevey could be in a position to reinstate those programs or expand them, she said.

"We may even look at ways to make those programs more effective," Johnson said.

The order to state education officials to eliminate those 23 districts and to review operations in the 172 others could result in more ways to save tax dollars, she added.

"It's a first concrete step. This is something that's been talked about for a long time," Johnson said.

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