None of my immigrant grandparents came to the US because they heard the social services were really fantastic. They didn’t come because we had a large and involved government. Hell, they usually did have that, and were fairly glad to leave it behind. But really, they moved for one thing and one thing only- jobs. They left their countries because there was better opportunity here. They sent money home, and initially thought they would go home. They never did. They thought it was better here.

When we really figure this out, we’ll reverse brain drains, and draw people back.

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=11471784

http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091104/LOCAL04/311049962/1002/LOCAL

I know the GF is not supported by property tax anymore. But the legisalture allows districts to seek extra operating money via referendum. It is often used to add teachers, reduce class size and improve programming or simply to preserve existing levels. And it is not counted against the caps.

Districts who have done this in recent months are Southwest Allen County Schools; Southern Wells Community Schools; Hamilton Southeastern and Beech Grove.

Schools most definitely have the option of an operating referendum which would be held outside the cap. And several districts have taken advantage of it already. In fact, the passage rate on those referendums is higher than on capital projects.

The idea of exempting schools from the cap makes sense especially since K-12 has no other way to raise revenue. School districts can’t pass COIT or raise tuition, and since the State took over 100% of the K-12 General Fund, districts can’t go through the referendum process to raise addtional revenue for operations.

The governor is cutting $300 million from education over the next two years. Schools are also projected to lose $288 million in property tax revenue to the tax caps over the next two years (and these losses are in no way tied to current spending or actual need).

The legislature could enact a two-year delay on the application of the caps to school property tax funds, and then allow districts to transfer some of those funds to the General Fund. Exempting school property taxes from the circuit breaker would also free up $60 million in relief grants for 2010. That’s about $348 million in funding, which would be more than enough to cover the cuts.

And taxpayers would still benefit from property tax relief. The portion of the projected credits attributable to schools is less than 1/3 of the nearly $1 billion in relief that Hoosiers are projected to receive through the credits over the next two years.

Before people scream about the need for school districts to reduce spending, especially central office spending–I don’t disagree! Central offices are way too big and full of way too many highly paid people, but districts aren’t going to find $588 million by cutting central office expenditures.

I’m also a huge fan of consolidation of services (as well as funding individual schools rather than school districts). The problem is there are too many school districts in Indiana that will not be impacted by tax caps. They can continue spending at high levels regardless of actual need, so I doubt there would be much interest in consolidation.