Local school officials are concerned about the potential impact of property tax relief legislation.
A proposed bill would temporarily lower the property tax cap and create an additional homestead tax credit for the next four years. Lake Central School Superintendent Dr. Larry Veracco wants the Indiana General Assembly to cut that back to one or two years.
"Because we're impacted, too," Veracco told the Lake Central School Board on Monday. "I mean, we have rising costs as much as anybody else."
The amount of state funding Lake Central gets per student is increasing, having gone up to $6,509 this year. But Director of Business Services Rob James said the district still lags behind the state average. Districts with more kids qualifying for free and reduced lunch get more funding per student, under Indiana's funding formula.
"We're thankful to the General Assembly for putting more money into the formula. There has been a trend to lower the top and increase the bottom in order to decrease the gap, so the gap is shrinking a little bit," James told board members.
Many school corporations are supplementing that state funding with local property tax referendum initiatives. But even that could be getting harder. Veracco said a separate bill would limit many schools' referendum questions to the November ballot, when most districts' budgets for the next year are already done.
To make sure Lake Central's concerns are being heard, the school board agreed Monday to re-enroll in the Coalition For Indiana Growing And Suburban School Districts.
"Recently, they've been doing some really good work with our state legislators, and I've been participating in Friday afternoon updates on legislative action," Veracco said.
He said the coalition's lobbyists have good connections with legislative leaders, but he said it's also important that lawmakers hear from school officials directly.
