With a property tax cap that cost the district more than $300,000 this year and declining student enrollment, Edinburgh Community Schools is considering whether to ask voters for a property tax hike.
By raising property taxes, Edinburgh schools can raise teacher salaries and pay for capital projects, such as repairing tennis courts, replacing an awning at the high school and working on heating and air. Repairing the tennis courts could cost up to $100,000 while replacing the awning could cost $20,000, school superintendent Doug Arnold said.
With the referendum, Edinburgh schools can also replace some of its older buses that it hasn’t been able to due to budget constraints, he said.
Edinburgh schools includes Blue River Township in southeast Johnson County.
The district met with consultant Steve Klink from First Tuesday Communications, who has worked with other Indiana school districts as they’ve considered referendums, to share information on how much a successful referendum would raise and how much the district will need to meet its various funding difficulties. School officials will research and talk to other consultants as well to see if a referendum is the correct path forward, Arnold said.
“The next steps are to continue to research companies that will help facilitate a referendum and at some point we’ll decide on a company we feel comfortable with and decide do we want to go ahead? We’ll need to make a decision by January of 2020,” Arnold said.
With circuit breaker tax caps on property, Edinburgh schools lost about $315,000 in potential tax revenue this year. The district lost additional revenue because of its declining student enrollment, which dropped from 904 during the 2015-16 school year to 818 for 2019-20, Arnold said.
If Edinburgh schools decides to go forward with the referendum and wants to put it on the ballot for either the May or November election next year, it will have to conduct a school board meeting to present the information, give the public an opportunity to comment, and vote on putting that referendum on the ballot. Edinburgh schools will also have to submit paperwork to the Department of Local Government Finance for approval, after which the ballot question will have to be approved by the Johnson County Election Board.
If it decides to put the question on the ballot in May, the school board will have to approve it in January. If it chooses to wait until the November election, the school board will have to approve it no later than in July, Arnold said.
Edinburgh Schools is still drafting a budget for 2020, which will closely resemble the one it has for this year. Its 2019 budget included about $5.8 million in the education fund, $1.1 million in debt service, $2.2 million in operations about $200,000 in pension bonds and $62,931 in rainy day funds, Arnold said.
Arnold doesn’t know how much the school district will need to raise to accomplish its goals, but wants to raise the base teacher salary from its current level of $36,100 to be able to compete with other districts, although the district doesn’t have a specific figure it’s targeting yet, he said.
“It’s not competitive with surrounding districts,” Arnold said of Edinburgh teacher salaries. “What it’s done, is teachers come to work for us and then they go to another district around us. We’ve lost quality teachers and hate to lose quality staff that way.”
Teachers made at least $38,885 at Center Grove schools last year, while at Greenwood and Clark-Pleasant schools they made at least $39,919 and $40,000, respectively.
In May, 63 percent of voters in Needham, Franklin and Union townships voted to increase the salaries of Franklin Community Schools’ teachers and support staff, as well as invest in mental health services for its students, including hiring a mental health coordinator and school-based therapists. With the referendum, teachers will be paid at least $40,000 during the 2020-21 school year.
Clark-Pleasant schools preceded Franklin schools in getting a referendum passed. Last November, 57 percent of voters in Clark and Pleasant townships passed a referendum for the district, allowing it to create its own police department and increase mental health services, including hiring the district’s first mental health coordinator.
This November, voters in White River Township will have the option to increase their property taxes to support increased security and mental health at Center Grove Community Schools.
