Benevolent Gerrymandering For A New York Central School District

So, what do Gerrymandering and Central School Districts have in common? Well, on the surface, not a lot. Gerrymandering typical has negative connotations as it is associated with redrawing of electoral districts for the benefit of elected officials already holding office. We’re coining the term “Benevolent Gerrymandering” because — in contrast to usurping power through n’er-do-well activities — Cornerstone actually creates a friendly Gerrymander that reflects a tighter, more accurate and unified mailing district via a creative deployment of both automation and saturation addressing tactics. We’re using the Taconic Hills Central School District as a recent.

Many school districts actually just use EDDM Saturation or non-profit saturation to distribute recurring direct mail communications such as budget newsletters, important school announcements and similar taxpayer or community outreach. While this saturation-only approach has merits, school districts — as well as libraries, fire departments, EMS/EMTs, Rescue Squads and even municipalities — often must over mail their mailings to reach the taxpayer community.

“Overmailing” occurs when an organization sends too much mail. For school districts, this happens when the postal requirement to send all deliverable addresses for a select carrier route (within a select ZIP Code) transgresses into another school district. The result can be head scratching for the recipients or worse appear tone-deaf to where school tax dollars are paid. It’s not the “end of the world”, but it’s not ideal and looks sloppy.

Cornerstone Services’ (www.crst.net) solution for Taconic Hills CSD was to create a hybrid two-prong approach whereby most of the outreach mailing is presented as full saturation while a lesser but still significant part of the mailing is sent to select homes/businesses that are located on partial routes. These cherry-picked delivery addresses represent the Benevolent Gerrymander.

To create the automation list (usually a partial saturation list), CRST has to reference real property data as well as electoral information in order to create a “Master List” that is used for recurring mailings. It does take some upfront time, but once it’s done, and the saturation names are reset to be (for example) “Taconic Hills CSD Friend & Neighbor” (or something like that) then the list may use for at least a few years.

The other benefit of having an automation list component to the mailings is that now other people may be automatically added at non-for-profit rates. Examples: divorced parents living out-of-district (if not out-of-state), school staff members, elected officials, business sponsors for the school activities and sports teams, interested parties, et al. Anyone who might call to get a newsletter could simply be added (provisionally) to the automation list.

We recognize that many library districts, school districts, EMT/EMS, PBA or fire districts might look like a paint splatter from a fallen paint can. Not to worry, if you are willing to consider letting us help out with a Benevolent Gerrymander, it might not become the school mascot, but ultimately there would be long-term postage/material cost savings not to mention fewer complaints. And, what School Board doesn’t like to hear Business Office feedback about materials and postage cost savings?

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Original Gerrymander.jpg
This is the original 1812 political cartoon from the Boston Gazette that helped coin the term “Gerrymandering” after Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry. The artist was Mr. Elkanah Tisdale, a block cut maker in the Boston area. From the Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

Taconic Hills CSD.jpg
Taconic Hills CSD logo is the copyrighted property of the Taconic Hills Central School District.