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Circuit breaker zaps northern Lake schools as taxpayer support wanes

Property tax caps, or circuit breakers, have a stranglehold on northern Lake County school districts as they face voter distrust and looming financial challenges.

With 16 districts, Lake County has more school systems than any Hoosier county. Many are located north of Ridge Road where several layers of government mixed with tax caps and shrinking industry have left them sharing a compressed pie.

The big losers are students who could see teachers, programs, and services like busing disappear.

On Nov. 7, voters in Hammond, Lake Station and Whiting rejected their school districts’ bids for operating money to keep schools afloat without major cuts. Hammond and Whiting lost by wide margins, while Lake Station lost by just 14 votes.

Twelve districts in the state had referendums on the fall ballot and five lost.

Under a 2006 state law ushered in by GOP lawmakers, school districts must ask voters for more revenue if they want to exceed the 2% tax cap, a measure lawmakers felt would offer homeowners more property tax stability.

Into the scrum with city council and mayoral candidates, schools campaigned for support, while opponents took shots against them. Hammond also had a $84 million construction referendum on the ballot, mainly for improvements at Morton High School.

Hammond voters rejected both the $15 million annual operating referendum and the construction referendum by more than 70%.

“It will hurt,” said Hammond Superintendent Scott Miller who said the district is looking at a “doomsday scenario” of downsizing personnel, which accounts for 90% of the district’s operating fund.

In Miller’s case, the issue became personal as social media detractors mocked him, calling the referendum “Miller’s tax.”

Miller tried to analyze the anger.

“I had the unenviable task of closing two high schools,” he said after the closing of Clark and Gavit in 2021.

“Opponents tapped into that hurt and who better to blame than the superintendent,” he said.

The school board unanimously approved Miller’s recommendation to close the high schools to stem financial losses as enrollment declined. The district was already on the radar of the state Distressed Unit Appeal Board regarding its finances.

In Whiting, Superintendent Cynthia Scroggins was stunned when 60% of the city’s voters turned down the first-time request for operating fund money. For an average homeowner, it would have meant an additional $120 annually.

“We are now forced to make some difficult decisions about cost cutting measures that will directly impact our students and academic programming since we did not get enough support from our community,” Scroggins said.

The situation is dire in Lake Station where the $1.3 million annual referendum lost by 14 votes.

Last week, the school board quarreled over the referendum’s defeat, with the board president Greg Tenorio calling for the resignation of a board member he accused of campaigning against the referendum.

Lake Station Superintendent Thomas Cripliver said the state has been notified the district won’t be able to afford bus transportation in 2025. It needed $466,000 from the referendum to fund it.

Cripliver said the district might not be able to retain school counselors who help students navigate their emotional issues and stresses following the pandemic.

The district also hoped to spend $333,000 to expand academic programs and $333,000 to recruit and retain teachers.

“It’s so disappointing,” said Lake Station school board member David Wright. “Facebook has so many crazy, outlandish, (and) false statements on our referendum that people recklessly threw out there,” he said.

“All you had to do was come to any of our meetings and we would have given you the factual information.”

Financial considerations have led about 50% of Indiana school districts to seek operating referendums. In some cases, voters support them without pushback. Duneland schools won a $40 million operating referendum in 2019 with 70% of the vote.

“They do tend to be very, very local. It depends on the school corporation, circumstances and how much support schools have,” said Scott Bowling, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials.

“Sometimes it’s just very unpredictable,” he said.

His organization has researched referendum results and found districts with overlapping governments — cities, libraries, townships and schools — scramble more for revenue.

“The highest percentage of tax cap losses is always with city and urban schools,” he said.

Suburban districts with more tax cap space tend to fare better, Bowling said. Those districts also tend to have a higher population of children in schools.

“I do believe Lake County is dealing with more referendums than the rest of the state. Lake County has a lot of districts and that drives it too,” said Bowling.

Meanwhile, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce has called for the mandatory consolidation of districts with less than 2,000 students in order to become more efficient financially and in academic offerings. It’s been advocating for the measure since 2017.

A chamber official said new data revealed 56% of Indiana districts have fewer than 2,000 students. Three districts in Porter County are below 2,000 — Boone Township, Porter Township and East Porter. Four are below in Lake County — Lake Ridge, Whiting, River Forest and Lake Station. Griffith is hovering at 2,000.

Past attempts to consolidate adjoining Lake Station and River Forest failed. Lake Station’s Cripliver said “everything is on the table,” now but he doesn’t think there’s merger support in River Forest.

Terry Spradlin, executive director of the Indiana School Boards Association, said he doesn’t expect any progress on consolidation in the upcoming General Assembly session that begins Jan. 8. He said the ISBA opposes mandatory consolidation.

“Instead, our policy approach will be to call for state-funding planning and implementation grants to assist school corporations to explore the possibilities,” he said.

Indiana Federation of Teachers leader GlenEva Dunham, of Gary, said referendums aren’t a sustaining way to fund schools.

“Nobody likes to volunteer to raise our taxes. They fail in urban communities where people are already cash-strapped.

“Indiana needs to take a look at what they’re doing to urban districts,” she said.

Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.