Candidate announces his stance against MCCSC referendum

The ads plastered on the Monroe County Community School Corporation’s website and on writings chalked on the sidewalks around campus remind passersby to “Vote Yes on #2,” the MCCSC referendum which would help provide about $7.5 million of funding to Monroe County public schools.

Ballot question two, the MCCSC referendum, would impose property taxes of 14.02 cents per $100 of assessed valuation over the next six years to help fund Monroe County public schools.

While the ads and chalkings spread the word trying to convince citizens to vote yes, some candidates are pushing the opposite. Among them is Steve Hogan, the 60th District Republican candidate for the Indiana State House of Representatives, which includes much of Monroe County.

“I think the referendum is a very short-sighted, short-term mandate that isn’t going to even touch what the problem is,” Hogan said.

In his Oct. 20 press release, Hogan said the real problem is a broken system. The recent budget cuts have come from the general fund which pays for maintenance, personnel and programs.

But there are other education funds for, among other things, capital improvements and repaying debts.

Hogan recommended in the release that funding crises such as these could be avoided if the system itself was restructured so that budget cuts could come from these other funds instead of the day-to-day running budget of the school district.

“We have $72 million in our general fund. We’ve got $52 million in a building fund,” Hogan said. “But if we can’t hire teachers, if we’re letting teachers go, I hope we’re not continuing to put money into the building funds.”

Hogan said he wants to fix the problems at a state level within the legislature, and he criticized his opponent, Democratic incumbent Peggy Welch, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, for not advocating for more money to go to Monroe County schools.

“The only way to fix this problem is to immediately address what’s going on from the legislature. There’s no reason in the world that the legislature in an emergency act in January can’t free up money for operating costs for schools,” Hogan said.

But those involved in the Vote Yes on #2 campaign and at the MCCSC Board disagree.

“Well, you know, if the legislature would see fit to appropriately fund schools then that might be all right,” MCCSC Board President Jeannine Butler said. “But unfortunately legislators are not going to raise taxes because then their constituents won’t be happy, so then schools are caught in the middle.”

Butler said the problem is the state took control of funding of public education two years ago, just before the national economic downturn. This downturn, she said, affected the state’s income from sales and property tax and many services took huge cuts, not least of which was public education.

“That problem created a situation for Bloomington and Monroe County Community Schools, where they had to actually cut $5.8 million out of that general fund,” Jack Peterson, communications chair for the Vote Yes on #2 campaign, said. “And that’s a mammoth, mammoth chunk of money that they did not get.”

Peterson and Butler agree that school funding needs to happen on a local level.

“If you look at local control of schools, which is built into the Constitution of the United States, you have to think that local schools’ control means that the local schools and the local community have a strong influence on funding schools,” Butler said.

Hogan said he believes the system must be fixed on a state level, but that doesn’t mean he does not support local schools.

“To me it’s inappropriate to pass a referendum that’s $50 million over the next 6 years into a mandate on what isn’t addressing the problem,” he said.