<p>Center Grove school officials are scrambling to find other ways to bolster school security and mental health in its schools after a majority of voters said no to raising their property taxes to pay for it.</p>
<p>Center Grove Community Schools still wants to add more police officers, a mental health coordinator and high-tech analytical security cameras at its nine schools. But after 64 percent of voters in White River Township said no to a proposed referendum that would have brought in about $3.1 million a year over the course of eight years starting in 2020, the school district will have to work with a tighter budget than it wanted.</p>
<p>And some of its goals, such as hiring the number of mental health professionals school officials want, may never happen, Superintendent Rich Arkanoff said.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]
<p>“Like we said from the get-go, we’re going to continue to work, add in police officers and other things, systems, equipment, where and when we can. Some will take multiple years. Others may never happen. Additional mental health support and behavioral support just can’t happen; that’s 37 percent of the referendum budget. There’s no funding source for that,” Arkanoff said.</p>
<p>The schools will add police officers at the same rate as they did before, at roughly one per year. The district will also look to hire more school security officers, Arkanoff said.</p>
<p>“We can try to add those when we can. It may take five, 10, 15 years to add those things and some things will never be added. Every year we revisit the prioritization on what we need,” he said.</p>
<p>In 2020, Center Grove schools still wants to hire a sixth police officer, bus coordinator and mental health coordinator, and add stop arm cameras to some of its buses, Arkanoff said.</p>
<p>They’ll just have to work within their pre-determined budget to make that happen.</p>
<p>Center Grove schools will also continue to work with its hospital partners to bring mental health services to students, rather than hiring more full-time counselors and paraprofessionals, he said.</p>
<p>One voter decided against the referendum because Center Grove is going $23 million in debt on a natatorium.</p>
<p>“We don’t need another swimming pool for the high school and too many people in the education system get money for nothing,” voter Rich McFarren said on Election Day.</p>
<p>Other voters may have followed suit, voting against it because they believe Center Grove schools already has the resources it needs, Arkanoff said.</p>
<p>“We heard that we’re already doing a great job, the teachers are great, we have a great police department, good things are happening and they’re comfortable with the way we’ve been rolling it out over time,” Arkanoff said. “There were a lot of positive comments about how we don’t need to rush it. I think that’s the biggest message I heard from folks saying ‘no.’”</p>
<p>Center Grove schools does not have the ability to spend state money on the objectives it wanted to fund with referendum money, such as additional school security and mental health support. People who had misconceptions about the way schools can spend its money also contributed to the downfall of the referendum, Arkanoff said.</p>
<p>“I heard a lot of misconceptions from folks saying we spent money on a swimming pool, why not just use that,” Arkanoff said. “We can’t use that kind of money to pay people. That’s borrowed money. Building Walnut Grove (Elementary School) … the millions of dollars spent on Walnut Grove can’t be used to pay teachers and classroom assistants. That’s money we borrowed to build.”</p>
<p>Although the Center Grove school board approved a bid package for the natatorium earlier this year, Arkanoff doesn’t regret the timing of that approval nor the timing of the proposed referendum, he said.</p>
<p>“Franklin has a beautiful high school and a pool like the one we’re trying to build,” Arkanoff sad. “This will be exactly like Franklin’s. You look at other districts and people want those things.”</p>
<p>Money to pay off debt comes from property taxes, which flow into each school district’s debt service fund. The money a referendum would have brought in would have funded goals usually paid for by the education and operations funds.</p>
<p>With property taxes capped by the state of Indiana and Tax Increment Finance districts, also known as TIF districts, taking away from the share of property tax money schools can collect, referendums are becoming more and more necessary if schools need extra money, said Michael Hicks, an economics professor at Ball State University, who was surprised the Center Grove schools referendum failed.</p>
<p>“Hoosiers are so under-taxed compared to the average American that it’s a folly not to consider every legitimate request for school funding,” Hicks said. “Indiana is spending less per student than it did 10 years ago, and there’s property tax caps in the state. Tax caps affect priority, but local governments have TIF-ed away almost all the additional revenue.”</p>
<p>About 63 percent of Indiana public school referendums have passed since 2008, according the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance.</p>
<p>Out of 13 referendum questions Indiana schools asked voters earlier this month, just six passed. The two Johnson County school districts that proposed referendums before Center Grove were successful.</p>
<p>Last November, 57 percent of voters passed a referendum that allowed Clark-Pleasant Community Schools to raise money for school security and mental health services through a property tax increase. Franklin Community Schools also had a successful referendum with 63 percent of voters approving a property tax hike in May that allowed the district to raise teacher salaries and provide mental health services.</p>
<p>Even though Center Grove schools couldn’t successfully pass the referendum, the community, including Support CG Students, a political action committee, still came together to get the word out and collaborate in an effort to inform voters, Arkanoff said.</p>
<p>“I really enjoyed being part of the process, win or lose,” Arkanoff said. “I think we really won. It was a great collaboration with everyone involved. The Political Action Committee was outstanding. The brainstorming was great. We did everything we could to get the information out.”</p>[sc:pullout-title pullout-title="Pull Quote" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]<p>“We heard that we’re already doing a great job, the teachers are great, we have a great police department, good things are happening and they’re comfortable with the way we’ve been rolling it out over time. There were a lot of positive comments about how we don’t need to rush it. I think that’s the biggest message I heard from folks saying ‘no.’”</p>
<p>— Rick Arkanoff, Center Grove Community Schools superintendent</p>[sc:pullout-text-end]
