By the Franklin Daily Journal
EDINBURGH — If the district’s referendum doesn’t pass, Edinburgh Community Schools could be forced to consolidate.
This primary election, voters in Johnson County’s Blue River Township and Bartholomew County’s German Township are asked to raise their own taxes in exchange for raising teacher salaries and giving the school district a more secure future, said Ron Ross, superintendent. The school district has proposed a tax increase of about 40%, from about $1.06 for every $100 of assessed value to about $1.45.
District residents with a home valued at the district median of $96,800 would pay about $120 more per year, and those with a home valued at $200,000 would pay about $381 more. Considered on a monthly basis, that’s $9.97 a month or $31.77 a month for a $200,000 home. The figures are estimates from Baker Tilly, LLP, a Chicago-based public accounting and consulting firm that is working with the district on the referendum project.
The need for a referendum comes as the district is in the midst of declining student population, which is down almost 10% since the 2015-16 school year. That has resulted in about $600,000 fewer state dollars, which is the equivalent of 10 first-year teacher salaries and benefits, Ross said in February, when the district’s school board unanimously approved putting the referendum on the ballot.
The revenue loss has affected teacher salaries. State law now requires all Indiana full-time teachers to be paid at least $40,000 a year, Edinburgh schools would not have been able to meet that requirement without additional financial assistance it received from the state of Indiana to boost salaries, Ross said. Some Edinburgh teachers had been making several thousand dollars below the new state minimum before this year, according to salary data from Indiana Gateway.
The tax increase would allow the district to do more to make teacher salaries more competitive, Ross said.
“We also have been unable to give raises for so many years in a row that the salary scale has become compacted,” he said. “This means that teachers who have different years of experience are making the same amount of money. Our overall intention is to become more competitive with our staff salaries and work to resolve the salary compaction issue.”
The referendum would also raise salaries for non-teaching staff, go toward purchasing additional school buses and hiring more bus drivers. Money would also go toward increasing security at building entrances, upgrading security cameras and adding stop arm cameras to school buses, Ross said.
The bus issue is another key need. Right now, the district cannot bus all of its students to school, so parents outside the bus route have to drive their kids to school, Ross said.
For the complete story, see Sunday’s Republic.
