By JIMMY LAWTON

Canton and Potsdam Central School officials will now be reviewing hundreds of exit poll comments to determine why the proposed merger failed and how the communities would like to move forward.

Canton and Potsdam school district voters shot down the proposed merger Thursday with 680 in favor and 1,404 against in Canton and 558 in favor and 1,279 against in Potsdam.

Superintendents Patrick Brady in Potsdam and William Gregory in Canton are hopeful the information will offer the schools insight into how the community wants to handle the financial crisis and how they envision the future of the districts.

“We are still inputting the exit surveys into the computer and then will be analyzing the data. The numbers will be several hundred, probably close to 600 at PCS,” Brady said.

Gregory said the Canton school district received about 700 comments.

The “no” vote ended merger processes, at least temporarily. Brady explained the process.

“Theoretically, another straw poll vote could be held at anytime if both boards of education make that determination through resolution,” Brady said. “More practically there would need to be circumstances such as a close vote in the first straw poll for this decision to made. If the straw poll vote had been successful in both communities, but failed in the binding referendum, the wait time is one year to hold another binding referendum.”

What happens next will be up to the respective school boards, both superintendents said they will need to focus on pushing state lawmakers to end the GAP elimination adjustment and create a more equitable formula for distributing state aid.

According to information provided by the study, Canton Central School will be broke in the next budget year if the state doesn’t drastically increase aid to the district.

Potsdam is expected to face the same problem just two years later.

Regardless of how things play out, both superintendents say they were encouraged by the surge of voters, which doubled average schools elections.

They also offered appreciation to everyone who helped complete the study, offered feedback or aided in getting information to the public.