By Jeff Tucker, Shelbyville News staff writer
Published: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 8:14 AM US/eastern
The Shelby County Council again Tuesday night narrowly approved a request from a Shelby County school district for supplemental funding.
The council voted 4-3 Tuesday to grant the $68,600 request originally made by Shelbyville High School in July. The money will be used principally to purchase 45 laptop computers and materials for a robotics course, said principal Tom Zobel.
Zobel specifically asked for $59,900 to purchase 45 laptop computers at $900 each, three computer carts at $1,350 apiece, three laser printers for $350 each and $14,300 for portable computer furniture. The principal said the high school is striving for a computer for every student in new 21st Century Readiness Program classes.
In addition to the computer equipment, $8,700 will be used to purchase supplies and materials for a robotics class that's part of the Project Lead the Way network of schools, Zobel said.
The same council members who recently supported similar funding requests from Shelby Eastern and Northwestern Consolidated schools also supported the request from Shelbyville High School, and those who voted against the prior requests also voted against Zobel's request for county funding.
Council members Scott Asher, Bob Carmony, Tony Titus and Margaret Brunk voted in favor of those requests and in favor of Zobel's request Tuesday, while council president Terry Smith and council members Tom Debaun and Linda Sanders voted against them.
Like the $99,000 given to Shelby Eastern Schools to replace antiquated computers and the $77,500 given to Northwestern Consolidated Schools to buy computers, language software and electronic equipment to help Triton Central High School launch its New Tech High initiative, Shelbyville High School's request will come out of the county's racino fund, which has been dipped into frequently in recent weeks by the county council.
Last week, the council approved spending $500,000 of racino funds to balance the county's 2010 budget. Last month, the county council approved giving Purdue University $1.15 million of racino funds for an equine center near Shelbyville and spending $220,000 of racino funds for a study of a wastewater treatment plant in northwestern Shelby County.
In June, the council approved spending $500,000 from the racino fund for a new parking lot for employees at the Shelby County courthouse complex.
The council also approved Tuesday spending $2,000 of racino funds to pay a consultant to help the county courts with a document storage system.
The racino fund's balance was $2,854,804 last month before all of those appropriations.
Susan Neville, technology coordinator at Southwestern Consolidated Schools, presented a request to the county council Tuesday for $240,000 of racino funding that Neville said would enable the school district to implement a wireless computer system for the entire district, and enable Southwestern to buy electronic devices to utilize the wireless network.
"The solution for us is a wireless network," Neville said. "Without the funds, we'll make progress; we always do. But it's slow, and many of our students will lose out."
Southwestern was the fourth and final Shelby County school district to request supplemental funding from the county council since spring. When the county opened its racino fund checkbook to an outside entity for the first time in April and approved $77,500 for Triton Central High School, several county leaders predicted the county's other school districts would be obliged to also come and seek county funding.
Southwestern officials made that prediction a reality Tuesday.
The county's racino fund, fed by gaming taxes, was created in 2008 after the opening of the temporary Indiana Live! Casino. It collects 4 percent of slot-machine revenues that go to the county and other municipalities in Shelby County.
The county first utilized its racino fund when it used $360,000 of racino funds for its 2009 budget.
Sanders said after Tuesday's meeting that utilizing the racino fund so often could hinder the county's ability to fund expensive and unexpected projects.
"Before you know it, it's not going to be here for what we need it for," Sanders said. "When we have a big project that needs a substantial amount of money, it won't be there."
Smith and Debaun have said they are philosophically opposed to county government tax dollars going to a separate taxing unit with its own powers to raise tax dollars, such as a public school corporation. The other four county council members say they are basing their decisions of local school funding on a case-by-case basis and only after evaluating the need.
As in the prior three cases, the council voted unanimously Tuesday to create a committee to study Southwestern's funding request.
"That's what we've done with everybody else, so I think that's only fair," Titus said.
A decision could come next month, although the other school districts have had to wait a few months before decisions were reached on their funding requests.
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