At a glance
Center Grove voters likely will be asked to approve a property tax hike for the school's general fund, used for daily expenses such as salaries and utilities.

March 16: County council will need a school board resolution that specifies the amount the referendum will ask for and timing of a special election

April 12: County must certify the referendum ballot question

July 2: County must publish notice of election

July 13: Election Day
Jason White, Daily Journal of Johnson County Staff Writer
Center Grove area voters will be asked to approve a property tax increase July 13, if the school board decides to follow a committee's recommendation.

A panel of residents and school staff picked the date for a referendum after considering June 22, a November date or waiting until next year.

The suggestion to wait until next year came from a finance committee member who saw potential benefit in making cuts this year and using a combination of cuts, cash reserves and one-time money to get through next school year.

This would give school officials a chance to show they tried every possible option before asking the public for more money, finance committee member and Center Grove area resident Forrest Mellott said in an e-mail to the referendum committee.


Mellott had valid points, referendum committee member David Mandelbaum said. If the public has the perception that school officials are going to ask for more property tax money and then take that money and do whatever with it, getting a referendum to pass this year could be difficult, he said.

"I think the chances of us being successful are limited by that perception," he said.

However, waiting a year would create two problems: The district would almost drain its reserves, and teachers and staff would have to go through another year of uncertainty about the future of the school community and their jobs, said Paul Gabriel, chief financial officer for the school district.

If a referendum passed next year, the district would not start collecting additional property tax dollars until 2012, meaning the school district would have to survive for about 18 months on cuts and one-time money, Gabriel said. The district is faced with a $3.6 million total shortfall next year, but that shortfall would increase to about $6 million by continuing to operate with more expenses than revenue, Gabriel said.

The school district could use cuts and one-time money to come up with $6 million during the next 18 months, but by the end of that time, the district would have exhausted its one-time money and reserves.

"You'd be playing it very, very close to the edge," he said.

And if the referendum failed, school officials would have to go through the budget-cutting process again, Gabriel said.

"This process is painful and ugly," he said. "I don't want to do it again next year."

As an alternative to waiting an entire year, November was considered, but a referendum in November would pose technical problems, Gabriel said.

With a November date, school will already have started with staffing cuts in place. So if the referendum passed, the district would need to shuffle teachers, staff, programs and students in the middle of the school year.

Also, if a referendum passed, re-hiring staff would be more difficult in the middle of the school year than during the summer, he said.

The May primary was a possibility, but referendum committee members ruled out this option, and the school board no longer plans to make any decisions by the end of the month. The board would have needed to make a decision by the end of February to meet the deadline for a referendum during the May primary election.

A referendum in May or November would be free to the school district, but a special election in the summer will cost about $50,000.

The hope is to cover at least part of the cost of the special election with money donated to the school district, said Jack Parker, Center Grove Middle School central principal and co-chairman of the referendum committee.

Committee members picked July instead of June for a referendum date, because July would give the school board more time to plan $3.6 million in budget cuts.

The referendum committee is then to recommend how much exactly the referendum should ask for.

To meet the deadline for a special election in July, a final decision will have to be made in time to pass paperwork along to the county by March 16 at the latest.

The goal is to come up with a list of cuts that would be permanent, and another list of cuts that would be restored with money from extra property tax dollars. Permanent cuts could amount to $1 million to $2 million.

Three groups - the administration, finance committee and teachers association - developed plans to cut at least $3.6 million in school spending, and two of the plans did not include eliminating teacher positions. The proposals did, however, include hiring freezes, meaning no new teachers to handle possible enrollment growth.

Interim superintendent Emmett Lippe is reviewing the plans to make his own recommendations about what to cut, and the board will have final say.

Even if the district can cut spending without laying off teachers, a referendum is needed to restore teacher positions that already have been lost, said Chris Pratt, high school choir teacher and president of the teachers association.

For example, before the start of the school year, the district cut $125,000 from teaching positions, $345,000 from non-teaching positions, $295,000 from support staff and $55,000 from miscellaneous costs.

During the past six years, the district has lost about 16 teaching positions combined and has grown by about 622 students.