Two Perry County school districts are asking voters to approve property tax increases on Tuesday.
A referendum for the Tell City-Troy Township School Corp. seeks an OK for renovation and expansion of Tell City Junior-Senior High School, costing up to $6 million. The project would be paid for by raising the district's tax rate a maximum 16 cents per $100 of assessed value.
Cannelton City Schools, meanwhile, want voters to allow the district to raise property taxes by as much as 41 cents per $100 assessed valuation over the next seven years.
The Tell City district has two schools and about 1,600 students. Cannelton has grades K-12 in one building, with enrollment of about 285.
Both school districts have been hit hard by cuts in Indiana's K-12 education funding.
Tell City shut down its middle school building to cut operating costs. The school board has been setting aside about $2 million a year for various upgrades to the high school, but adding junior high grades there has created about $6 million worth of additional needs, Superintendent Ron Etienne said.
The school was built in 1928. There have been no additions or modifications since the 1979-80 school year.
Etienne said the school's kitchen, which was built in the 1950s to serve about 150 students, now serves more than 600 daily and must be replaced.
The music area and auditorium need renovations, and there aren't adequate physical education facilities for the junior high students, Etienne said.
Tell City voters defeated a referendum in 2010, and a remonstrance effort in 2007 blocked another effort to add construction funds.
Cannelton City Schools, meanwhile, also have struggled with financial issues.
A state audit of the Cannelton school district covering July 2007 to June 2009 reported that federal taxes were delinquent; that incorrect enrollment data was given to the state; and cash balances were overdrawn.
Superintendent Marion A. Chapman has since said the district is settling with the Internal Revenue Service on more than $700,000 in taxes owed, and other debts are paid.
The district has been forced to cut more than $1 million from its budget since 2006, said Chapman, who could not be reached for comment on Friday.
Campaigns for and against the two referendums have been waged amid what appears to have frayed relations between the Tell City and Cannelton districts.
In a report in the Perry County News this fall, Chapman is quoted as telling the Cannelton School Board that Tell City board members contacted him about the possibility of merging the two districts.
Chapman is quoted as saying he and others in the Cannelton community want to keep their independent school district, and if consolidation occurred, Cannelton taxpayers would take on debts owed by the Tell City district.
Chapman has categorized Tuesday's referendum for Cannelton schools as a vote in favor of maintaining an independent district.
Etienne, asked Friday if he supported merging the two school systems, declined to answer.
"I don't want to go there, to be honest with you," he said. " ... I don't want to fuel that fire."