From the Northwest Indiana Times:
School Town of Munster Superintendent Richard Sopko is blunt about the significance of Tuesday's referendum.
“If this referendum doesn’t pass, the students in the 2013-14 school year, just next year, will not receive the same education as students who are here now,” Sopko said.
The referendum asks for an increase in property taxes of 19.9 cents per $100 assessed value. However, Sopko said, the 2013 Lake County property taxes in Munster have dropped more than 18 cents compared with 2012 taxes.
“That means we’re only asking to add 1.16 cents per $100 when compared with the 2012 amount,” Sopko said.
While it will still amount to 19.9 cents per $100 of assessed value, the 2014 property tax needs to be compared with 2012, he emphasized. The Munster property tax increase as a result of the referendum will not be as high as originally expected.
For a home with an assessed value of $100,000, the additional charge would be 32 cents per month, or $3.80 per year, above 2012 property taxes, according to a chart provided by Sopko. A home assessed at $300,000 would have an additional $1.57 per month, or $18.88, per year property tax increase when compared with 2012.
If passed by voters, the referendum would add $3 million a year for seven years to the district’s general fund. That would bring the funding levels close to what they were before Indiana switched state funding for schools to state sales taxes, from property taxes, Sopko said.
The general fund pays for salaries and benefits, and utility costs. The funds brought in by a successful referendum wouldn’t pay for the construction done at the high school, he said, noting the school town’s debt service is a different part of the budget.
The School Town of Munster has lost state funding since 2002, Sopko said, representing a drop of 29 percent of its budget. That translates to funding cuts of $2 million per year. The district also ranks fifth from the bottom in per-student funding, he said.
“Schools that perform poorly get more funding per student,” Sopko said. “Charter schools, parochial schools and virtual schools with no brick and mortar buildings get more funding than school systems like Munster and Lake Central. The charter schools and voucher programs are diluting the amount of money available.”
Munster currently receives $95,000 less per classroom than other schools in Northwest Indiana, he said.
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See the full article here:
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/munster/decision-on-school-referendum-called-most-important-in-town-s/article_2f93e4e7-0150-56e8-89b0-63042d312cf1.html
