There was a widely held assumption among the residents of the Butler School District that the consolidation approved a year ago would improve the district’s financial circumstance.

It was broadly implied — at least, many of us broadly inferred — that closing five of the district’s 11 neighborhood elementary schools would provide some relief from year after year of hefty budget increases and corresponding property tax hikes.

Residents found themselves divided between two alternate consolidation plans — centering on wether the remaining elementary schools should follow a grades K-4 or K-6 format. But the consolidation remained essentially true to the administration’s template. The consolidation has been in effect nearly an entire school year.

Despite the ideological rift, nobody really questioned the need to cut expenses by shedding unnecessary schools. It was widely understood that the move would save us money.

So now the question on the community’s mind is simply this: where’s all the implied savings from the consolidation?

The Butler School Board is discussing a $106.4 million tentative budget for the 2016-17 school year. That’s $5.7 million more than the current year’s budget of $100.7 million.

It’s worse than that, actually. The projected revenue for next school year is only $99 million, even after assuming a maximum property tax increase of 3 mills. Even with the projected tax hike, expenses are still $6.9 million over the projected revenue.

Take the budget totals and property tax rates for this first year under consolidation, and compare them with those of the year before and the year ahead:

- 2014-15: $98.3 million; 94.8 mills.

- 2015-16: $100.7 million; 94.8 mills.

- 2016-17: $106.4 million; 97.8 mills (both proposed).

It’s disturbing that despite 44 job eliminations and other presumed cost savings associated with the shutdown of the elementary schools in 2015-16, costs are projected to increase at nearly three times the rate going into the second year of consolidation as they did going into the first year of consolidation. From a taxpayer’s point of view, it’s as it the consolidation never happened.

But the consolidation did happen, and a wary public might regard this coming budget as more irritation than the remedy they’d anticipated.

District officials should consider that these figures portray them as disingenuous. School board members should consider that they appear weak if they don’t demand a tighter budget from the administration.

The bottom line is that the proposed 2016-17 budget is not what a consolidation-minded electorate expected.