Mark Bennett: Long-term decisions on schools remain after Vigo referendum's defeat

May 6—For six Indiana communities, the next steps after Tuesday's primary election are to prepare for the changes coming through school operating or construction referendums approved by voters.

In Vigo County and Franklin Township, thoughts of what's next aren't so clear.

A total of nine referendums were on ballots in eight communities, aimed at funding a variety of school needs — from retaining teachers and aides and boosting their pay to adding resource officers and school buses, making classes smaller, saving music and art classes, and building and expanding elementary, middle and high schools.

Hoosiers approved all six operational referendums in Edinburgh, Mt. Vernon, Valparaiso, Griffith, Perry Township and Lebanon. Voters in Lebanon also approved a construction referendum for their Lebanon Community School Corp. northwest of Indianapolis. The referendum involving the largest school tax-rate impact of the nine referendums — $0.4212 to fund teachers, administrators, bus drivers, fuel and arts, music and phys-ed classes in Perry Township in southern Marion County — also passed.

The success of so many of the referendums exceeded the expectations of Terry Spradlin, executive director of the Indiana School Boards Association. He called it a "great day overall for public education."

The two referendums rejected by voters would've funded school construction projects in Franklin Township, a fast-growing community in southeastern Marion County, and Vigo County, which has a declining family-age population and Indiana's highest child poverty rate. Opposition to the referendums came from 62% of Franklin voters and 68.5% of Vigo voters.

For communities where school-funding referendums fail, "there are always lessons to learn," Spradlin said. "And rate is a factor."

Vigo's $261-million proposal would've funded rebuilding and renovation of the 51-year-old Terre Haute North and Terre Haute South high schools, and the 62-year-old West Vigo High School and Middle School. Vigo has the eighth-highest property-tax rate among Indiana counties, but the portion paid toward the Vigo County School Corp.'s unit rate is one of the state's lowest, ranking 169th out of 290 districts. If approved, the referendum's 22-year impact would've raised property taxes by under $7 a month for 52% of local homeowners and $14 a month for another 38%, according to a VCSC calculation based on property values from the Vigo County assessor's office.

Construction referendums have passed less often than those for operational needs since Indiana adopted the referendum process for significant school-funding projects in 2008. Voters have approved 64% of all school-funding referendums, including 70% for operations and 55% for construction, according to calculations by Larry DeBoer, a Purdue University tax policy expert.

Trends provide some perspective, in terms of probabilities, but similar projects in different cities aren't guaranteed the same results.

"These are really local elections that turn on local issues that really can't be measured," DeBoer said Wednesday.

Certainly, that was true in Vigo County. The much-needed modernization of the three county high schools ended up behind other public projects like the building of a new Vigo County jail and a downtown convention center. It's impossible to know whether voters would've viewed the high school project more favorably if it had preceded the jail and convention center, but it couldn't have hurt. Instead, an early effort to coordinate those public projects fizzled. So, the high school modernization project continued at its own methodical pace — slowed by a multi-layered referendum process, the economy's implosion in 2020 as COVID-19 hit, the pandemic's profound disruption of daily school functions, and then inflation's bite during the nation's recovery.

The VCSC's past troubles and its closing of another elementary school also influenced many voters.

So what now?

After Tuesday's vote, VCSC Superintendent Rob Haworth sat in a Terre Haute South High School classroom and assessed the outcome. He regretted not being able to convince residents of the need for a project of that size to modernize the schools. Haworth praised the efforts of advocates for the referendum, which he said aimed to give "all students high-quality learning environments, where they have limitless opportunities and experiences."

As for what's next, Haworth said, "We've got challenging decisions that are ahead of us. We're sitting right now in a science room that we're going to have to address."

As the Tribune-Star's Sue Loughlin reported, Haworth said he anticipated using small general obligation bonds and also federal ESSER dollars to address some of the high schools' HVAC issues, and emphasized that West Vigo Middle School also must be addressed.

As for the long-term, those school buildings won't last forever and clearly weren't built to do that. So, maybe other options — those less desired through the 55 public forums and online surveys — will be necessary. One of the eight original options was for North, South and West Vigo to be demolished, and a new central high school built on either a new location or on the North or South sites; a new West Vigo Middle School would also be built. A less costly mega-school option or some other cheaper alternative would still, of course, require another ballot referendum.

Since 2008, eight Indiana school corporations have lost construction referendums and then tried again and won, according to DeBoer's research. Two lost initially, tried again and failed again. Another 22 districts lost construction referendums and never tried again.

Big decisions are ahead indeed.

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.