Facing a looming shortfall, the School City of Hammond has been looking at cost-cutting measures like laying off teachers and closing schools.
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. blamed a suburban exodus and lack of student funding in a fiery, impassioned rant at the Lake County Economic Alliance's annual meeting at Briar Ridge Country Club in Schererville. He said the urban education system was "in shambles" and it was a problem holding Northwest Indiana back economically.
"The people who moved out of my city and moved out of Gary and moved out of East Chicago for education reasons, they just move out and forget about the old city. That's one of our biggest problems," he said. "Just because you live in Crown Point or Hobart doesn't mean the problems are gone."
It's a problem for the whole Region, not just cities in northern Lake County, McDermott said.
"We're attracting companies that are bringing thousands of jobs and they're going to have to look at a city like Hammond, Gary or East Chicago," he said. "Let me tell you what's going on there right now. I'm in good shape on the civil city side, but on the school city side, if you had an operating referendum that passed and gives you seven years of financing, then you hire a bunch of teachers for seven years, what happens when the operating referendum comes back due and the voters turn it down? You lay off teachers. You shut down schools. That's what's going on in Hammond right now. That's what's happened in Gary and East Chicago. And we all move out to our Chestertons and our Valparaisos and act like nothing's wrong. But there is."
McDermott lamented the state's level of funding for public education, saying it was hurting kids.
"The state of Indiana is not funding public education," he said. "I think the state of Indiana is trying to shut down public education. But it's on its way in Hammond. In Gary, it's been there already."
The situation is untenable, he said.
"If you think that's normal, you're wrong," McDermott said. "If you go out to Valparaiso and put your head in the sand and act like nothing's wrong, you're part of the problem. No offense, I'm not here to piss people off. But that's a problem. Our education system is a shambles in urban city — a shambles! It's embarrassing. If we all want to act like everything's great, we have our problem too. Yeah, Illinois is a high-tax environment but they're not laying off teachers and shutting down schools. We're not Shangri-La. We've got work to do, regardless of where you live."
Cities are suffering from departures and disinvestment.
"My hospital that was shut down is in Crown Point now," he said, referring to Franciscan Health closing its more-than-century-old hospital in downtown Hammond and opening a new hospital just off Interstate 65 in Crown Point. "All of my teachers are moving to better school districts. Is that the answer? We've got problems, guys. We want to act like we don't have problems but we do."
Gary Mayor Eddie Melton said the budget in the Gary Community School Corp. is now in the black for the first time in a decade.
"We were the first city where our school system was taken over because of debt, not because of academics but because of debt," he said. "Clearly, there's a fiscal issue on how we fund education."
Schools now commonly rely on referendums to pay for capital expenses and operating costs after Indiana passed property tax caps of 1%, 2% and 3%.
The Region's aging industrial cities also have been long losing residents to new subdivisions in more suburban communities like Schererville, St. John, Crown Point, Valparaiso and Portage due to a number of factors like aging housing stock, pollution and school grades. Hammond's population peaked at 111,698 in the 1960 census. It was 77,879 in the most recent census in 2020. Gary's population peaked at 187,320 in 1960 and fell to 69,093 in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. East Chicago's population reached a height of 57,669 in 1960 and was 26,370 in the latest census.
Lake County Economic Alliance Interim CEO Don Babcock said the heavy industry hurt the air quality in the cities, leading residents to move to more suburban communities in southern Lake County and Porter County.
"Part of the reason we were getting an exodus from these urban cities was for the pollution," he said. "You could come across the Illinois state line in Indiana and the sky was orange and it stunk and it was grey all the time. I remember going to the beach in Michigan City. Very rarely could I watch the sun set over Chicago. There was fog and pollution and everything else. There's a lot to brag about here but I appreciate the frank discussion. There's a lot of work to do and we all need to pull together to make this place great."
Hobart Mayor Josh Huddlestun said better education and less brain-drain was needed for economic development.
"We need to look at it from a community standpoint, making sure to do everything we can within the city of Hobart to make an impact and draw and attract talent, new investment, schools. We need to continue the pressure downstate to make sure our education, our school systems are being taken care of because those people end up becoming jobs in the future, become good-hard-working people in our community. The more we can do to keep them here in the state of Indiana and in the county — we've got a lot of successful people from Hobart who go on to do great things and develop businesses but they move out of the Region so we have to keep those people here. Those people, those minds, those innovators can really transform the Region."
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