Voters will decide today whether to approve a Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. referendum raising property taxes to fund teacher salary increases and school safety improvements.
If approved by voters, the referendum will generate about $7.8 million per year in additional property tax revenue to fund teacher and support staff salary increases and student safety.
Under the referendum, BCSC property taxes would be raised by $0.156 per $100 of assessed value to roughly $1.01 starting in 2021. BCSC officials initially had sought a $0.195 per $100 of assessed valuation increase, but lowered the request before the public information sessions began.
A total of 86.5% of the increased property tax revenue would be spent on employee recruitment and retention and 13.5% on student safety, according to BCSC. The latter category includes plans for “funding for existing school resource officers, mental health counselors in all buildings, and to update the bus fleet so that no buses are older than 12 years old.”
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Superintendent Jim Roberts said that while he’s unsure of how the coronavirus pandemic will affect the referendum’s outcome, it has affected the campaign strategy. Chad Phillips, assistant superintendent and director of finance, said that as the election approached, volunteers mainly focused their efforts on phoning registered absentee voters. They also published media advertisements, sent some material to likely supporters by mail and used social media to advertise.
“We’d love to be out talking to people and knocking on doors and getting face to face, but it’s just not feasible right now,” Phillips said.
He commended the volunteers for their “tremendous effort” in spreading awareness, including Vice President of the Columbus Educators Association Mandy Keele (who also teaches at Southside Elementary School) and Janice Montgomery, a BCSC retired teacher and administrator, as well as former executive director of the Bartholomew Consolidated School Foundation. Both women are part of the political action committee that supports the referendum.
“If this passes, it will be because Mandy and Janice put their hearts and souls into making sure that the community knew about it and supported it,” Phillips said.
“I’m not sure if they (Keele and Montgomery) slept,” Roberts jokingly said. “It doesn’t seem like they have, over the last five to six months, as they’ve tried to make sure that people were informed about this. David Doup was the actual chairperson of the PAC, and then Tony Gambaiani was our treasurer, or the PAC’s treasurer.” He also commended Phillips for effectively communicating to people how the money from the tax increase would be spent.
“Their hard work is greatly appreciated, and there’s just many other team members that I could thank as well,” Roberts said.
Both acknowledged that the pandemic has made life difficult for those faced with economic challenges.
“We’ve been very conscious of just everything that’s going on,” Roberts said. “We know that trying to ask for an increase in taxes in the midst of a pandemic that is affecting people in an economic way is a challenge.”
However, Roberts said he still believes the the referendum is just as important and relevant now as it was when it was originally proposed.
Phillips also noted that the referendum’s tax increase would not take effect until May of 2021, by which time he hopes the pandemic will have subsided.
According to a property tax calculator on BCSC’s website, a home with an assessed value $141,800 — the average home value in BCSC’s tax district — would see an estimated annual property tax increase of $93.48, or $7.79 per month, under the proposed rate increase. A property assessed at a value of $300,000 could expect to see an increase of around $253.89 per year under the new proposed rate, or $21.16 per month.
Bartholomew County’s property tax rate in 2019 was $0.8512, lower than the state average of $1.07, according to figures provided by BCSC.
On the other hand, if the referendum is not passed, there will likely be a myriad of effects for the school system. According to BCSC’s website, without an increase in pay, “teacher turnover will likely continue at 10% or greater,” support staff will have lower wages than others with similar jobs and the bus fleet will remain old and in need of “increased investments in parts and service.”
The site added, “Grant funding for mental health counselors will not be replaced. Without referendum funds, BCSC will consider other steps in order to retain and recruit staff. These may include higher class sizes, increased student ride time on buses, increased expenses on building maintenance items, decrease in support staff, and decrease in mental health services provided.”
When asked how they felt about the referendum, Roberts and Phillips both said they were “cautiously optimistic.”
Roberts said, “I feel like our team has done the things that are necessary to educate people on the need and to appropriately ask for a yes vote.” He added that if the referendum is successful, it will likely be because BCSC began informing people about it as early as late November, before it was officially put on the ballot in January.
“The reason that I am optimistic is because I can’t think of a single person that, when spoken to, said, ‘I don’t think you should spend the money on that,’ ‘that’ being our people, you know, our teachers and our support staff and our bus drivers,” Phillips said “… They may say, ‘I don’t want to pay more in taxes’ or ‘I think you should spend your money differently than what you’re spending it right now,’ but everyone that we’ve spoken to has at least said, ‘Yeah, I think the people who work for you should make more money.’ And so that makes me optimistic, that the community at least says, ‘Yeah, we really do need to make a better investment, a bigger investment in the people who teach our kids and grow our community.”
Roberts said that he, Phillips, Keele and Montgomery will be part of a video call tonight at 7 p.m. that will be streamed live on BCSC’s Facebook page. During this call, they will offer their remarks on the outcome of the referendum — or the lack of outcome, depending on how long the vote count takes on Tuesday night after polls close at 6 p.m.
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For the eight (8) calendar years immediately following the holding of the referendum, shall Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation impose a property tax rate that does not exceed fifteen and six tenths cents ($0.1560) on each one hundred dollars ($100) of assessed valuation and that is in addition to all other property taxes imposed by the School Corporation for the purpose of increasing compensation for teachers and support staff and maintaining student safety?
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