Monroe County Community School leaders are bracing for the impact of the governor’s proposed property tax cut.
Markay Winston, MCCSC superindendent, and April Hennesy, MCCSC school board president, spoke Friday on WFIU's Noon Edition about future plans for the schools and what impacts this year's legislation could have.
Caps on property taxes, which are nationally used to stabilize bills for homeowners amid soaring home values, force school districts to find new funds or cut back budgets.
Braun’s plan– currently defined inSenate Bill 1– would reduce property taxes through a cap on tax increases.
MCCSC would lose approximately $32 million in state funding over the next three years.
“We're gonna have to to kind of walk back some of the promises that we made to our to our community based upon legislative decisions," Winston said.
She says cutting property taxes would also impact the money MCCSC receives from the referendum passed in 2023. Winston says the corporation won’t get all of the additional $18 million approved by county residents.
“We're going to have to look at all of the dollars that we committed to teacher raises," she said. "We're going to have to take a look at the dollars that have been committed to expanding our early learning programming. We'll have to take a look at all of the dollars that would be committed to fixing our buildings.”
The governor’s proposal would eliminate almost two billion dollars in funding for K-12 education over the next three years.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs may be banned in both the federal and state governments, including school systems.
Indiana Senate Bill 289 says state agencies may not give preferential treatment to anyone based on race, sex, color or ethnicity. It also requires schools to disclose materials that involve nondiscrimination, diversity, equity, inclusion, race, ethnicity, sex or bias.
Hennessey says that would allow a parent to challenge any content that they perceive as discriminatory.
“It would mean that we couldn't teach about the civil rights movement or the women's suffragette or the women's right movement, a whole host of things.”
She says banning the bill could marginalize some students.
"Inclusion is inclusion for all students, students with disabilities, students across the spectrum," Hennessey said. "And so we want to make sure that when we say, that people understand what it means and it really encompasses all of these things that we want for all of our students."
The anti-DEI bill passed the Indiana Senate by a 34 to 13 vote and now heads to the House.
Noon Edition is a weekly radio program inviting your participation on news and issues facing the south-central Indiana community. You can find more episodes on our website.
