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Dear Editor:
Recently, our community has heard a lot about the school referendums in Carmel and Westfield and why they are so important to our local public schools.
As a proud 2024 graduate of Carmel High School, I know firsthand how critical these referendums are for the continued functioning of our exceptional public schools. Largely absent from the conversation, however, is the reasoning why these referendums even need to be placed on the ballot in the first place.
Across the state, a record 38 Indiana school districts have referendum questions on the ballot, largely due to a property tax reform law enacted by Republicans in the state legislature last year (SEA 1) that reduced the property tax revenue schools were expected to receive by over $700 million statewide, including tens of millions of dollars from Carmel and Westfield schools.
These referendums offer another reminder that what happens at the Indiana Statehouse trickles down to our local communities and to our local schools, who are now forced to deal with a problem imposed on them by our state lawmakers who refuse to provide our public schools with adequate state resources.
Your votes for the referendum and the state legislature are intricately connected. If you’re choosing to support the referendum, do your research to determine whether your choice for State Representative or State Senator is a vocal, hands-on supporter of the referendum, or if their support is empty optics and backtracking on the choices that led us here.
Make sure your votes for our local schools and for our state officials align.
Ben Boyce
Carmel
Thank you Mr. Boyce! Your thoughtful advice DID help me decide whether to vote for or against the Westfield Referendum.
In spite of being someone who has been a beneficiary of what is the most significant property tax reform since Hoosiers overwhelmingly constitutionally capped these taxes in 2010, I was planning to vote to approve Westfield School’s referendum tax increase after recently hearing Dr. Atha.
I realize now that I was being inconsistent and that supporting the referendum is incongruent with my concerns over the shocking increases in our communities’ taxes on the homes we live in.
Personally my property taxes have increases a compounded rate of 6.5% in the years 2021 through 2025 over my home’s taxes in 2020. (Thinking I was an outlier, I checked a handful of my neighbors and they were ALL 7 – 8.5% year over year!) This is no small increase for me; it directly impacts what I can afford to pay for other important things like groceries, home repairs and charitable donations. (Though I do admit I don’t have to eat, fix a leaky roof or give to United Way.) Image if your college’s tuition, books and dorm fees increase that much each year over your school career… what might have been $3000 in certain costs as a Freshman are now $4000 as a Senior… remembering that you’ll still be paying those increasing costs years and years AFTER you’ve graduated.
I don’t know about Carmel and Noblesville’s referendum’s tax increase, but Westfield will be doubling their referendum tax from $.17/$100 assessed value to $.3381 or more. In my case, I paid $499.60 in Westfield School Referendum Taxes this year. Can I afford to pay a little under $1000 in extra school taxes over my 1 percent assessed capitation?
Again, THANK YOU for clarifying the issue for me.