DUBOIS — Yes, life does move on after an election.
Candidates win. Candidates lose. Referendums pass and fail. And then something new comes to the surface.
Case in point: The Northeast Dubois schools property tax referendum that will bring in approximately $500,000 annually for the next eight years to the district, a measure that was approved in the Nov. 8 general election with 70 percent of voters in favor. But after the polls closed and the results settled, some residents began sharing the framework for a plan that aims to move the school board from an appointed body to an elected group.
“The biggest goal is for our voices to be heard,” Dubois resident Kristi Brinkman said. “I believe with an elected school board, the taxpayers will have more of a voice and maybe the people that get elected will listen to us taxpayers and maybe make some changes so our school can grow.”
The referendum called for a tax increase of 18 cents per $100 of assessed value for property owners in Hall, Columbia, Harbison and Marion townships.
Petitions for the switch have since popped up in about 10 small businesses, restaurants and gas stations in the Northeast Dubois district. Brinkman is a self-employed hair stylist and said a petition in her salon has stacked up about 20 signatures in only a few business days.
Dubois Farmer Dustin Cave started researching the issue after the referendum passed and found 2014 numbers from the nonprofit Indiana School Board Association that show only 4 percent (12 of 298) of its boards are appointed.
“I can’t imagine that 96 percent of the school districts are wrong,” he said. “I guess my question to the school board and the superintendent here would be, ‘Why is this the correct way to do this?’ And I’d be willing to hear their side.”
The board is comprised of five members who are appointed by the Dubois County Council.
Northeast Dubois Superintendent Bill Hochgesang declined to comment on the issue.
Cave has two children enrolled in Northeast Schools: Madison, a freshman at the high school, and Andrew, a sixth-grader at Dubois Middle School.
He clarified that his motives for supporting the petition are not to oust any of the members — he thinks the corporation has a good school board. But he also believes a better representation of the tax district is essential in the group moving forward. He also doesn’t like the fact that an appointed board can’t approve its own budget.
“It actually has to be approved by the county council, so to me that doesn’t make much business sense,” Cave said. “The county council is probably doing the best they can, but they’re not fully aware of the ins and outs of our school like our board members are.”
Cave said the petitions will be available until mid-December, after which the organizers hope to move forward with a referendum of their own. Don Hayes, a retired teacher who lives in Jasper, is working through the legalise now for some friends in Dubois to determine the next step and how soon it could be on ballots. County Clerk Bridgette Jarboe also could not confirm the timeline.
When the Dubois County school districts were reorganized in 1969, the Greater Jasper district started with an elected board, so Hayes doesn’t have any experience with an appointed board. He doesn’t know what to think about the petitions.
“Coming from a public school background myself, I’ve always hoped that politics and education could be kept separate,” he said. “Things, I think, would be better if there was a separation between politics and education, but I’ve been around for a long time, and it’s a reality that they’ll be mixed up together.”
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