Snow takes longer to plow in New Whiteland because the town has fewer workers. Many Clark-Pleasant students ride buses longer because the school had to consolidate routes. Some class sizes grew by 25 percent in Franklin when the school district couldn’t afford to hire new teachers.
But in the city of Greenwood or Center Grove and Indian Creek schools, services for residents and students haven’t changed much in the past few years.
The difference is due to tax caps, which limit how much local governments can collect in property taxes. Areas with higher tax rates, such as Franklin, Edinburgh and the Clark-Pleasant school district, lose 15 to 20 percent of the taxes they expect to collect each year because of tax caps. Clark-Pleasant Schools can’t collect more than $4 million in taxes each year, so administrators have had to make cuts such as putting off building maintenance, not buying new buses and not replacing staff members who leave or retire.
