By Larry Riley in the Muncie Star Press:
A
special election in a really off-year, with only one yes-or-no question on the
ballot, should be an ideal time to do a trial run on vote centers.
Muncie
Community Schools — already leading the state in costs of public school
education at more than $18,000 per pupil — wants yet more money, more than
property tax caps allow, even as the school board prepares to consolidate its
two high schools into one.
Increasing
the tax draw requires taxpayer approval, so MCS petitioned the Delaware County
Election Board to conduct a special election in November for a referendum on
increasing taxes.
The
schools can’t wait until next May, when a primary election will be held for
multiple countywide and state offices. Were MCS to hold off until then, the
schools would pay nothing to be on the ballot.
The
vision of $6.5 million in additional funding is evidently too tempting, hence
the school board is willing to shell out the money to pay for a special
election.
Muncie’s
school district is the same territory as Center Township.
(Until
Indiana’s push in the 1960s to modernize the model of public education,
township trustees ran schools. The community schools emerged from school
reorganization as MCS, but no other township consolidated with Muncie.)
Most
of the city of Muncie also is located inside Center Township, and the city
typically pays about $150,000 as its share of election costs. (All town
elections — Yorktown, Albany, Selma and so on — are held in those odd years and
together those municipalities bear the roughly $200,000 expense of the election
here.)
Muncie
is comprised of 43 precincts, a few of which are outside Center Township, but a
few township precincts are outside the city limits of Muncie, so the MCS
geographical area, with 42 precincts, is roughly equal in size to the city.
Despite
this, the school system was hoping to pull off an election for only $40,000
tops, and the Election Board would like to accommodate.
“There’s no sense in having 42 precincts
open,” said Delaware County Clerk Steve Craycraft at an Election Board meeting
10 days ago, “for just a yes-no question.”
…
See the full article here:
