The Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board is in amalgamation talks with the Wellington and Bruce-Grey Catholic boards. "This is something that appeared for the first time ever in the budget process in April," said Martha Dutrizac, director of education at Huron-Perth. The boards began looking for ways to integrate some office staff on their own, before it was a directive from the Ontario Ministry of Education for school boards to have merger talks with neighbouring boards. The challenge for school boards every year is to come up with efficiencies and a balanced budget, said Don Drone, director of education at the Wellington board. "I think we're doing just fine the way we are. Sometimes in politics whether it's deemed good or not is irrelevant. The government is strapped for cash ... they're taking drastic measures to try to find ways (of saving) without disassembling the good things they've put into schools over the last eight years," Dutrizac said. The savings will come in the form of job losses. Once amalgamated, there would be one director instead of three, one superintendent of business and so on. "I worry about that every day. The people who have the potential to be affected work out of the board office," Dutrizac said. Drone stressed job losses aren't an indication of poor performance. Should the boards become one large board the geographical area would swell to include vast areas of both urban and rural schools. Huron-Perth has 18 schools. Bruce-Grey, which has 13 schools, stretches