The Canajoharie and Fort Plain School Districts’ financial rationale for merging schools is entirely false. The districts’ own official financial information shows both schools to be in excellent financial condition with growing fund balances. So, why are they proposing a merger?

Our two school districts – in the merger study, in merger information sheets, and in incredibly boring videos – have repeatedly and unambiguously stated that our schools have pressing financial issues, with expenses outpacing income. In the previous post: “Do long-range financial plans provide accurate predictions?” I explain how I obtained official financial records from both districts through a Freedom of Information Law request. While that previous post highlighted the inaccuracy of the school’s long-range financial plans, here we are presenting information exposing the falsehood of the claim that expenses are outpacing income.

Fort Plain provided copies of the official NYSED ST-3 financial reporting form. (1) Canajoharie provided copies of their audited financial statements. (2) Charts compiling information from both districts’ official documents are provided below, along with links to the actual documents. These documents show that Fort Plain’s fund balance grew by $8.36 million in the last 5 years, and by $1.75 million in the last 2 years. Canajoharie’s financial position has grown even more: by $10.66 million in 5 years and by an even $6 million in the last 2 years. These numbers are entirely at odds with the claim that our schools are experiencing “income outpacing expenses.”

What, then, can be the basis for the school superintendents’ claims? Read back through the posts “Do long-range financial plans provide accurate predictions?” and “Do long-range financial plans provide accurate predictions? (Two).” Our schools paid Dr. Rick Timbs more than $20,000 to concoct an official looking document that was explicitly designed to obscure the truth. That document is not an honest prediction of probable future activity. It is a deliberate deception.

That deception is demonstrated by the chart below (2), compiled from the Canajoharie Central School audited financial statements. Those statements contain a form that compares the final school budget to the actual financial activity in the school’s general fund for each year. In most of the reports, this chart is titled “General Fund Budgetary Highlights.” Here’s where the deception comes in. All of the budgets for the last 5 years were deficit budgets, with a total 5-year projected deficit of $3.8 million. As seen above, every year actually posted a surplus, with a total 5-year surplus of $10.66 million. This means the cumulative budget vs actual difference was $14,5 million. Remember that number! And review again “Do long-range financial plans provide accurate predictions? (Two)“, which explains why it is “normal” for school budgets to show a deficit when actual financial statements show a surplus.

That is the deception. When an “expert” does a projection based on budgets rather than actual financial activity, it is guaranteed to be profoundly pessimistic. In fact, it looks like, for schools about the size of Canajoharie and Fort Plain, that a 5-year projection based on budgets will be low by $14.5 million; both the Canajoharie cumulative budget vs actual spread, and the Fort Plain 2020 five-year plan, were off by….$14.5 million!

So add $14,5 million to the projected fund balances in Dr. Rick Timbs’ latest totally discredited “projection”. And know that the financial case being made for a school merger by our two superintendents is entirely false. (Do you see any clothes?!)

(1) Fort Plain Central School District. NYSED State Aid Management System, Analysis of Fund Balance, 2019. https://cfpmergertruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/fund-balance-6-30-2019.pdf

Fort Plain Central School District. NYSED State Aid Management System, Analysis of Fund Balance, 2025. https://cfpmergertruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/fund-balance-6-30-2025.pdf

Fort Plain School Total Fund Balance Projected vs Actual

(2) Canajoharie Central School. Audited Financial Statements, 2020/2021
https://cfpmergertruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/canajoharie-csd-final-r21.pdf

Canajoharie Central School. Audited Financial Statements, 2021/2022
https://cfpmergertruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/canajoharie-csd-final-r22.pdf

Canajoharie Central School. Audited Financial Statements, 2022/2023
https://cfpmergertruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/canajoharie-csd-final-r23.pdf

Canajoharie Central School. Audited Financial Statements, 2023/2024
https://cfpmergertruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/canajoharie-csd-final-r24-1.pdf

Canajoharie Central School. Audited Financial Statements, 2024/2025
https://cfpmergertruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/canajoharie-csd-final-r25.pdf

(3) The deception is made obvious by the experience with the FOIL request. Agencies have 5 business days to send an initial response. Canajoharie took five days. They then have 20 business days to send the documents, Canajoharie took all 20 days. That is not because these documents were difficult for them to provide. They already had them in digital form; all they had to do is attach them to an email. They waited as long as they legally could because they do not want the public to have this information.