School board seeks support for approved referendum

School board members, students, and neighbors gathered at the Noblesville Schools administration building annex last Wednesday night, January 19, to move forward on the 1058 motion, a referendum to increase property taxes in an effort to financially support system-wide improvements.

The referendum, which passed unanimously, will appear on the May 4 ballot. The project consists of building a new elementary school to replace Forest Hill, adding over 20 classrooms for elementary schools, upgrading the intermediate school to become a second middle school, and adding additional science labs and health and physical education classrooms at the high school.

However, the improvement will come at a great cost to the administration – over $63 million dollars. Adding further stress, the state education department’s new budget cuts will force 15% of the system’s spending in 2010 to be eliminated.

“I’m not sure [the department of education] had growing school corporations in mind when they crafted these budget cuts,” board member Chris Hamm said.

This year’s new proposed budget, just over $48 million, is notably less than the budget of just three years ago, even with the addition of 1400 students since then.

Per-student spending has been slashed by $428 in those three years, eliminating many after-school and summer activities and all field trips, superintendent Dr. Libbie Conner said.

“We’ve frozen spending everywhere we can freeze it,” Conner said.

Nevertheless, the proposed improvements are necessary to accommodate the educational standards of the community, she said.

Consequently, if the referendum is passed by voters in May, taxes must be imposed.

The board’s financial expert, Randy Ruhl of City Securities, Inc., said that the project’s $63.6 million price tag would be distributed among three different years’ property taxes.

“Staggered payments allow us to stagger tax impacts,” Ruhl said.

But the board feels that the taxes, no matter how great, are necessary.

“To achieve a lesser level of education will cause the community to die,” Hamm said in a passionate explanation of the new taxes.

Before the big vote on May 4, Noblesville residents have the opportunity to review forum dialog, the 2009 Demographic Study, and frequently asked questions on the school district’s website at www.noblesvilleschools.org.