001by starting on time and as others come in throughout this uh meeting that we have we will spend some time with them afterwards to catch them up or answer any questions that they have uh first of all I'm Tom cripp liver and I'm the superintendent here at Lake Station Community Schools and I'm working on my 10th year here at Lake Station superintendent so I'm very pleased and very proud to have that honor and privilege to be superintendent that long I am also a graduate of Lake Station Community Schools and I attended poke elementary school then Edison Junior Senior High School and this facility uh where I graduated in 19 long time ago so we won't go there but uh thank you again for coming on the tables next to where you are seated there are
002two uh pieces of literature that I'd like for you to take and we will talk about them during our meeting this afternoon one is a handout and it talks about the school districts in Lake and Porter County that have referendums and on the back of that sheet is the question that's going to appear on the ballot when you go to vote November the 5th and what we've done is listed the actual question that will appear and then we want to talk with you to let you know what that question really means because the general assembly back in 2021 decided that they wanted to pass a law and in that law write what those referendum questions were to look like so we had to follow that General Assembly law the Lake County Assessor the Lake County
003Board of elect s had to write that question as the law was dictated so we'll go into a little bit more information about that with you but tonight the purpose of our meeting is really to give you information about the upcoming referendum which is a renewal referendum because we were fortunate back in 2017 that our voters and our community supported and passed a referendum for Lake Station Community Schools so this time this referend um is just asking for a continuation of that referendum that was voter approved back in 2017 because it's a renewal that also means what we asked our community to consider in 2017 we're asking them to consider that again now what do I mean by that the referendum is set at a levy of 54 C cents so 54 cents on every
004$100 of assessed valuation came to Lake Station Community Schools and it's a renewal because we're asking for the very same thing 54 cents not any more not any less just the same amount that people have been paying for the last seven years for the Lake Station Community Schools referendum what I'd like to show you up on the screen is the website that was put together to explain the referendum and I'm not going to go through all of it but there are some key things that I want to point out to you so that you can go home you can bring this up on your computer your laptop even your cell phone and have access to this web s it and dive into more information if you would like but as you bring up the website
005you'll see these tabs across the top and the Home tab is basically what you're seeing now and you can scroll down on the homepage and you can see that our mayor Mayor Bill Carroll and our Lake Station city council have endorsed this referendum for this coming year and this is the city council's resolution that's the mayor's letter endorsing and asking for your support for the upcoming referendum question on November the 5th the next tab I want to show you is the tax calculator and this was put together not by Lake Station schools this was put together with the assistance of the Lake County auditor and the Lake County Assessor and the purpose of this calcul is for you the individual homeowner to put in the assessed valuation of your home in this box and then
006it will automatically calculate for you how much this referendum will cost you a month cost you for the entire year and we got some information from the Lake County assessor's office because I was curious what is the average homeowner home worth in Lake Station and then with all the the deductions added into it what is on average a Lake Station homeowner is going to pay for the referendum so from the county a auditor's office the average gross assess valuation on a home in Lake Station is 117 958 so let's just say $117,000 when you consider all of the deductions that's built into mortgages that brings it to a net assessed valuation of 43,7 124 so now you went from a gross assessment of 117 down to a net assessment after all your deductions have been
007calculated to 43,7 24 your property taxes are based on the net assessed valuation which is for average homeowner a lake station is 43724 when you plug in that 43,000 with the 54 cents levy on the referendum that comes out to $236 111 a year and if you break that down that comes down to $19.68 a month that's what Lake Station schools is asking our community to continue as they look at this and support Lake Station students at JJ's Pizza once a month that's what we're asking for so this calculator oh and one other thing about the calculator is this line that's in blue I don't know about you but I would not be able to answer the question question what's my net assessed gross evaluation on my home so by clicking on this blue line
008that will take you right to the county auditor's office and then in the space that's provided just type in your address and once you type in your address a picture of your home and what your assessed valuation is then you take that number that they give you and plug that into that box so in this box we used 117,000 came out to 1941 for your monthly cost and about 232 for your annual yearly cost now the calculator will be different from person to person because your property taxes are different from person to person but to identify for you I encourage you to look at the tax calculator that's up on our website that way you can see what the impact will be for you and your family in your home okay we'll back out of
009the tax calculator oh sure Greg go ahead I just want to say how important it is to go to the website and actually get your assess value from the website and not guess because your home is probably your market value is probably 50 to $60,000 more than what your assess value will be so it's very important that you go to the website and actually find your assess value and not just say my house is worth X because you're probably G be60 or $70,000 more than what's actually assessed for thank you Greg and that's a good point market value and assessed evaluation of your home is very much two different things so thank you Greg for that out going back to the web page we've just left the tax calculator we can go to the revenue
010spending plan when we put together the proposal to do the referendum and to renew it we had to say okay if this referendum is renewed how are you going to spend the money and it's been broken down on this spending plan just referendum money and how that money will be used and at the very top item number one which we here at Lake Station schools consider very important is school bus transportation our families our students rely on school transportation so out of just the referendum money we have set a side $484,350 student Safety and Security very important this day and age more so than when you and I were in school student safety 138,000 every year provided for that particular line item other educational needs 69,4 so this brings us to a total of 1,384
011N7 $9 this is how the plan for the referendum money will be divided out and what it's going to be spent on I want you to scroll up just a little bit more because you see Neighbors New Vista High School and you see Discovery Charter School well why are we talking about charter schools what's the big deal with that the big deal is in the last General Assembly that ended their session back in March of 2024 they said that in four counties across the state of Indiana only four counties if you have a referendum you have to share your referendum money with Charter Schools where Lake stations students attend so we have some students that attend New Vista High School out in Portage on Route Six and we have some students that attend Discovery or
012discover yeah Discovery Charter School and 21st century school so we had to contact those charter schools and see if they wanted to participate in our referendum well after giving it some thought 21st Century Charter Schools dropped out they don't want to participate in our referendum but Neo New Vista High School and Discovery do so we have to share a portion of our referendum money with those two charter schools that was a very difficult dilemma for our school board The Dilemma being did you ask for more than 54 cents to make up for the loss of money that's going to these two Charter Schools or do you keep it the same we decided through much discussion and much thought with the board members to keep it the same 54 cents yes sir one thing was that
013money for for the past you know the refer that's been going on was that money going there already no good question it's a br just pass also that as well legislation they also have to help participate in it they also have to help financially with it as well but also they have to show their records on how they're spending their money as well that's one of was one of the things likeis so just sure you guys are aware and your question was just is it going to the Charter Schools was it going to the Charter no no I I would just curious you yeah with the p ref that be losing $26,000 out of the ref right because 13, 317 will go to both of those schools and by the way I apologize I didn't
014recognize the special guests that we have with us this evening and I really appreciate them taking the time to be here and that is members of the River Forest school board and Richard Perez I appreciate your input into the conversation and and adding more insight and more information to our discussion tonight so I really appreciate them being here we're very glad to have you I wasn't trying to be snob no no no you fine en please ask all the questions nobody involved in this uh this system right now I'm trying to wants to have to share this money with the charter schools the charter schools are so well funded as it is this is only hurting Public Schools even more um when the referendum failed last election that was the last election we could have
015passed it and not had to share those funds unfortunately with it not um passing now any referendum that passes for we have to share these funds with them and and I think uh M perz kind of shared about it if they want to be part of those funds so the two that have elected they have to share their finances with um the Public Public everything that's share so everybody can now see those finances 21 uh 21st century said no we don't want to share our finances we're going to back out now that's why they're not getting the funds but that's part of them having to receive these funds is okay well we'll share it with you but now you have to share all your financial so I would assume though that I mean I see
016that it's different numbers for three different schools two of them are the same but I'm assuming that that is going to fluctuate with students that may stay there it's the amount of students from our district that attend that school right and what you see there with that the lowest number that the school that dropped out that 12 11 that's the number per student right so then obviously you can kind of char and po schools don't get the same funding the formul totally that's already a set rate it's it's not something we say ah we'll give you 500 today it's it's set out for how much is it it's going to them um per student do they let you know how many students are from Lake Station yes they had to to disclose that information to
017us so because and that's a good question so because of New Vista and Discovery getting the same amount of money there's students that attend Discovery and 11 students that attend New Vista I think it's important to note to you that those are just our students and the charter school so they obviously have everyone else's School District students there so they will participate in other districts that have referendums as well but also too it's pretty important to let everyone know that that are knocking on doors and getting the information out there that with with the formula of of how schools are funded and how much you get for a child you know when you let them know you know Charter School are getting this much public schools are getting it's important when people do why are
018they getting that much and then don't know I mean they turned education sadly into a business and so one thing you shouldn't do is put your put any kind of child whatsoever in a category of a business you should run school like a business but it should not be a Poe profit very good points thank you we're going to leave the spending plan and I want to take you to another bullet point Tom before we go please sure go at the top of the board that the transportation was 484000 I just want the public to know that's just what's coming out of the referendum what is that total cost for transportation year about 800,000 correct so this is just what we're going to spend out of the referendum for transportation we had that come up
019before and since busing going to be such an important issue whether this thing passes or fails I want to know the total cost of the transportation sure not a problem thank you for pointing that out okay going back to the homepage the web website I want to go to the tab that talks about the question clarification because this is what we really need to get people to understand and this is the most difficult to understand because of the way we have to write the question so on the back of the piece of paper that you have at your place where you're sitting it gives you the public question and this is the public question as it will appear on the ballot what we try to do under what it means is to explain what does
020that question really mean what's it saying and for that I'm going to ask one of our school board members the Secretary of our school board Kevin music to talk about that for us thank you Kevin you're welcome thank you everyone for coming out tonight tonight um I know that this is uh kind of been going on for a long time and I'm sure there's plenty of people in this room that are tired of hearing the word referendum I know I'm one of them um but really appreciate you all coming out tonight and again River Forest School Board coming out like that we really appreciate it um we we need support from all over we're all a community here even though we lost the football game and I had to wear the the Ingot you know
021gear and everything like that we're we're all a community we're all in this together and we need to support each other so thank you so much we'll see okay um but getting on to the public question here so it is it is kind of a long-winded question I understand that a lot of people are going to have a hard time understanding what it is um so you know just to give you a brief overview here it does say um shall Lake Station Community Schools continue to continue to impose increased property taxes paid to the school corporation by homeowners and businesses for eight years immediately following the holding of the referendum for the purpose of funding school bus transportation maintaining and expanding academic programs uh Recruitment and Retention of teachers and staff student Safety and Security
022Services and other educational needs uh the property tax increase requested in this referendum was originally approved by the voters in 2017 and if extended will increase the average property tax paid to the school corporation per year on a residence within the school School Corporation by 65% so that's obviously the part where people are going to start freaking out is when they see these numbers um also and if extended uh will increase the average property tax paid to the school corporation per year on a business property within the school corporation by 58% so we do have the breakdown of what it means a little bit here on the on the other side of that as well so of course the tax purpose is as listed in the question for school bus transportation the academic programs the
023retaining teachers and staff student Safety and Security uh this is a continuation it does say to continue to impose it's not that we are increasing it we're not asking for an additional tax in in in addition to the one that's already in place the current referendum ends at the end of this year and unless this vote passes it will not continue into next year so we are asking for a renewal um it's asking for the same tax rate that has been paid for the last seven years um part of the uh tax impact here on number three over there um it says if you take the money collected from the 54 Cent referendum renewal and compare that total revenue to what Lake Station Community Schools would get from property taxes without it you find that
024it provides 65% of the funding from the uh for the operating budget so what I've been trying to the way I've been explaining it to people to try and help them understand is in your individual tax situation you aren't going to see your taxes go up 65% from this even though that's that's the way maybe the question sounds to a lot of people uh what it does mean though is that the schools will will receive 65% more funding than they would without it um there's there's more to it there's a lot of complicated tax math behind it but at the end of the day our effective tax rate went down this year compared to last year and that's part of the reason why the um percentage is different on the the question this year compared
025to last year um what happened was we paid off debt that lowered our our school tax rate by a decent amount I actually have my tax information over here um and so of course it's difficult to say because the tax caps affect everyone differently and everyone's tax situation is different but just for example um with my tax situation I my taxes went down the school district tax went down from the rate was down from 248 to 185 um and then that meant that the taxable amount dropped $229 roughly it was a nearly 20% decrease now not everyone sees that relief because of the way the tax caps work you may not see a difference in your tax bill when that happens you may it all depends on your situation um but the other thing to
026keep in mind is that you also don't even pay the rates that I just talked about um our effective tax rate is 83 cents so um um the comparison as you can see up here on the screen this is something I put together so forgive me if it's not the prettiest thing but um the effective tax rate for the schools last year was a117 and the referendum was 54 cents so once we paid off that debt it lowered the effective tax rate of the schools to 83 cents but the referendum that we're asking to continue stayed at the same rate so what that means is that the referendum is taking up a you know bigger percentage of the overall funds that we're getting from property taxes um so that's where if you do the math
027on the side here you can see uh 54 cents divided by the roughly 83 Cents gets you 65% so that's the that's the thing uh I understand that not everyone's gonna cling to that and understand it right away but I just want to make it clear that your individual taxes will not see that increase of 65% it's overall the schools receive 65% more funding compared to our effective tax so the taxes shouldn't not go up at all well you know obviously that's that's the question a lot of people ask and at the end of the day the assessor's office dictates what you know assessed value is so we can't say that somebody these taxes will go up or will go down that's that's not our choice we're just a school system we can't make that
028call with the referendum um we're asking for the same rate um we can't sit there and ask for a specific amount we can ask for a rate um obviously there are factors outside of our control um so by all means as Dr cripp just shared earlier we have um the newest information showing the average gross assessed value of a home at roughly 117,000 now that does affect how much people pay but what we're looking at right now is still an average of $19 a month and that means we have roughly half of our people in our city paying less than that and roughly half of them paying more than that let put another way then unless the assessor raises their assess value your taxes will not go up if this is renewed yeah exactly if
029if the assessor makes a change that's up to the assessor's office but you know at the end of the day we have no control over that um all we can do is you know ask for the the support that we need to keep the schools running properly um it's also important to keep in mind too um things get more expensive over time that's just how it works there's inflation there's higher costs on Reps for things um everything costs more money nowadays and I understand that's hard for everyone um it's also hard for the schools so when we have a tax rate and you know that way it it kind of helps us keep up with the times a little bit so it's that's a rate it's not a flat amount um but at the end
030of the day I mean I I don't want to be asking anyone for this at all I I don't think we should have to be asking for this at all but that's a decision that's made at the state level and and there's only so much we can do and we need to make sure we're taking the best care of our kids as we can and this is the the only way that we can really do that at this time now does anyone have any questions about the question about the percentages is there any way that I can clear that up anymore Hey Kevin I want to say something to this question this question was designed to freak out the citiz okay it was designed because what happened in 2009 when they started St they stop
031the publication they created this ref system the question was that they anticipated schools not passing referendums they anticipated them not passing by their surprise we started passing referendums communities rally behind their schools and said you know what I want my public school to succeed so then as the years go by and was it 70% 75% are passing the state who wants to turn it into a private business decides how can I confuse the citizens you know what I'm gonna change the question like he said the dollar amount doesn't change right but people down state said we need to confuse the citizens so they came out with this question to confuse the normal citizen so understand that this is their game that they're playing down state they want to take public Ed public education and make
032it privatized that's their end game that's always been their end game and communities like yours ours fighting back and saying we value our public education we value our students every student no matter where they live deserve the same type of education no matter where they live the kid in Lake Station should get the same keep my language nice the same type of education than a kid in belel is you know the same kid in prom point the education he gets Lake Station kids get River Forest kids should get if you look on this sheet I mean I see all the post and everything so you need to tell me points Mis managing Gary gri ham Handover HT Lake Station Central moner River Forest D Union all those schools mismanage their fund no they didn't it's
033what the state has done to public education which has forced these commun even your crown points your Belles to ask for referend understand this question was designed to confuse the citizens and that's what yeah exactly there was there was um a roughly two two and a half or two page explanation of how they got to this percentage um and I mean let's face it uh even myself who I I I kind of feel like I'm decent with math even I got lost in the middle of it for a while there um when when you have to sit there in your explanation for how you've gotten to the end of a math problem takes two pages you're you're clearly you clearly have some other motives behind it if you ask me didn't they close all of
034the Gary schools I heard they don't have any public they didn't close the schools um but they but they did take them over for a time they actually um that's how Charter originally got inse yeah they still have yes so um I believe last time I saw finances back the school board they just they just took over coule yeah that was in the last couple of months that the the you know the residents like you know again you know here in Lake Station for example I mean we have a school board that are is made up of elected officials so what happened with Gary was they were taken over by the state and here's here's what really happened is they had a management company from Florida come in they paid them millions of doll to
035try and write the ship in Gary and then they still had to pass a referendum while it was under State control so you know if if Gary would have passed the referendum that they were trying to pass you know before they were taken over by the state who knows what would have happened maybe there still would have been some issues maybe they could have got on the right track I can't say for sure but at the end of the day even after all that effort was put in to have someone else come in and millions of dollars was poured into a company I mean and and right now um I think uh I think the last I saw there's still about 4,000 kids that are in the public schools in Gary and I think that
036it's roughly 60% of them go to Charter Schools um so you can kind of see what happens when when when a public school system struggles and what swoops in to try to take its place and over 90% of kids in Indiana are Public Schools still but they're not giving the appropriate funding to the public schools they're funling that money toward Charter Schools private schools I think there's somewhere around $400 million that has gone to private schools in the form of vouchers and we're sitting here in Lake Station asking for our residents to pay more money to be able to keep buses going 600 million and they get away with it vouchers were intended to be kind of a good thing for um those like private schools for the low income Comm you know exactly but
037but what they did was they figured out oh wait we can turn this into a business now to qualify for about I'm not $250,000 originally just only 25 yeah exactly for something that started out that would be a good Boon to a lower income family that had maybe a struggling school system that they wanted to send their kids to a school that maybe was better for them um it turned into something where they've opened up the income requirements to where pretty much anyone can get it now and now they're there are kids that are going to private schools and government funds are going to those private schools when those kids would have gone to that school with or without a voucher because their their parents had enough money to send them to a private school
038exactly that are those schoolis all those that's the thing you know to kind of piggy back off that you know when our tax dollars stay in our community these schools are the public good you anybody you know just a quick show of hands who who graduated from from Lake stage who's who's currently going I see a couple young faces there anybody to school here so that's their school but this is the community school this is something that you paid in in tax dollars over the years for however long the school has been here this is something that you own and legislation made down state where we don't have a say I mean they put us to work to make us go out and stick our hands out the public but they forced us to do
039it this is yours this is all yours whether you're a student here whether you're a homeowner whether you graduated last year or 50 years ago or or whatever I mean this is this is for us but those same people that are forced us to stick our hands out to the public to fund our school buildings and educate our students those folks are taking that tax money and giving it to their buddies in public or in private education they're giving it to their churches which you know I mean that's why this is designed this way so and you're going to blame the local official they were trying to do that my father 30 years they were trying well 30 years ago there's a legislator down state named Bob Benny he's been on the Ed the Indiana
040public school committee for 30 years yeah well he had to ask permission years when this first rolled over to Lake County he when they came into session he asked permission permission to Brian bosmer who was the head speaker of the house and said hey is it okay if I Lobby for private for-profit education and they kind of went yeah it's fine don't worry about it because he knew his bosma has has his hands in the still I'm sure does though he's not in office and Eric has well and I I'd like to go back to what you were saying for a moment as well um you know that's one of the things I've heard a lot is there's a lot of uh finger pointing saying you know they're just mismanaging the funds where did all
041the money go those types of things so something to keep in mind is that this is an operating referendum and so what this means is that we use these funds every year for those purposes whether it's the transportation or the the the safety pieces of it it's not something that we just you know squirrel away as much as we can and then spend it on whatever we want we use it every year for those purposes and you know as it's already kind of been brought up we are not alone and having a referendum um just to list a few of them I mean Crown Point Gary Griffith Hammond has two Hanover has two Hobert has two um I mean it's not just us and so to sit there and think that oh it's just them
042mismanaging funds but to see it happening in so many places are you really going to sit there and say that every single school system that has a reference is in places doing something that they shouldn't be doing when all of the the financial records are public um um but so yes before we get side I I did this as soon as the superintendent was talking about you know the U the calculator and all that and my wife just said this wasn't live so I I guess whatever if they watch it later whoever's in this room go over there and do it calculate it for my market value on my house was way higher than the assess value was seriously so I'm looking at $34 a month for this that's I mean really for the kids
043that's so if you have any concerns about it look at it and and that's something I've been trying to get across as well I mean with the average being $19 a month I mean that's how much Netflix costs about nowadays if you if you want to be able to watch it on more I if you have more than one person in your house trying to watch Netflix at a time you're paying like 2025 a month so um I just want to interrupt if I can just real quick we are recording this meeting so we can put it on our social media platforms so thank you for bringing that out when we have discussion from the audience we're kind of cheating those that are watching this later online because they can't hear you you don't have
044a microphone so I'm going to ask Jacob uh if he would go around the room and provide you with the microphone only because we want our other people watching this online later on to hear your good comments and to hear your good questions not to to stop the discussion but only for them to be a part of it as well and so just like like you said to to your point though you know this is uh you know I understand right now in general things are more expensive for everyone and I get it um you know I I've I've said it before I'll say it again uh pretty much my whole family still lives here in Lake Station my mom lives is here she's on a fixed income she's paying about $10 a month um
045I know that I'm sitting probably around $22 a month or so a little bit above the the average um but at the end of the day what we're trying to do here is we're trying to make sure that we can support the kids get them to school make sure that parents don't have to take a day off work or leave late come home early to make sure that they can get their kids to and from I was just gonna say I'll talk loud that was the point I was going to make is how much is gas and how much does it cost you to to drive your child to school five days a week so you're looking at what gas is compar when you're paying 10 20 or 30 exactly I mean cheaper than child
046yeah I was gonna say the the a couple of the comments from from the community out here you know cost of gas if you were to have to drive your um kid to school or if you needed to hire a babysitter or get somebody else involved to help them in situation of course with the the e-learning has been a struggle we don't want to be doing that so we need to you know get this pushed through so that we can get back to normal Kevin treesak the superintendent at River Forest um I I just wanted to say very briefly I have a family engagement that I'm a half hour late for but I made a priority coming here the board made a our board made a priority here coming here too this is good for
047Lake Station kids everything we presented tonight because we are a referendum school as well too uh is correct it's well done it's well meaning uh it's it's it is money out of everyone's Pockets I I live in in in our school district so I know what it means to to pay for a referendum as a as a as a parent and as a homeowner uh we absolutely support Lake Station kids and and that's why they're here tonight and I too excuse me my wife will probably be mad if I thank you very much I there's great conversation your wonderful job by the way just tell it's Rich good night the thank you Kevin I appreciate you being here and and I also appreciate the River Forest school board for being here and our city council
048member for being here excuse me because that's just a unified showing of how important not only referendum and Public public schools are but we're all in this together these are all Lake Station children these are all Lake Station students in our public schools and we need to do right by them and unfortunately the state back in uh Governor Mitch Daniel's days he's the one that made our state a referendum State and that's the way it is so we have to work within the guidelines and with the rules that the governor and the general assembly established to make it work best for our kids so we arrived at that 50 4 cents not by pulling it out of the air we wanted to really calculate what that 54 cents would do for our community and quite
049honestly it basically just makes up for the loss in property taxes due to tax Caps or tax credits if you're the taxpayer whatever you want to call it so that 54 cents just makes up some of what we've lost in the property taxes and that's how we derived it 54 C we didn't just pick it out of the air and you know again everyone's tax situation could be a little bit different but just to share my own um so uh after the tax cap kicks in and everything like that my my tax liability is actually at $1,615 um the tax cap kicks in and keeps me at the my 1% cap at one 1,344 after the referendum gets applied and for me that was 271 for this year it gets me right back to the
0501,650 $ that is my actual tax liability so again it's not always going to be pinpoint accurate for everyone um but you should you could should kind of see you know a similar situation in your own taxes um this is what I'm talking about right here obviously so that property tax liability is what would be paid if there was no tax cap in place for me um this is my information from my home uh the property tax kicks in right here and then if you're looking at your own property tax information this is also where you can see exactly how much you're paying for the referendum right here it says upward adjustment due to voter approved projects and charges EG referendum and so these numbers right here you can see my tax liability and my
051total after the tax cap and then adding the referendum back in gets me exactly where my tax liability would be without the tax caps in place um so could you expl explain then why the there is a school district tax because a lot of times people are confused they'll say that they're paying the $961 for the referendum so can you explain where that number came from yeah so obviously a school district is going to have a tax rate that's what I was talking about before is we do have a tax rate for the school district so another decision made at the state level um has dictated that the the normal tax rate for the schools has to go toward Debt Service first so to kind of explain that obviously um as with your own home
052if you had a big project that you couldn't just pay for out of pocket you have to take out a loan um we have a big project like a roofing repair or air conditioning if we didn't have the funds outright to do that we have to take loans for certain things to get those done so with that um we have the tax the property tax money that comes in that's Baseline goes towards Debt Service First and that's something we can't control um again this the state mandate mandated that that money has to go to debt Services first um the other part of this too is um overall when when we look at uh how much funding we get for operations um here in Lake Station it it fluctuates a little bit um we have anywhere
053from 50,000 to 400,000 depending on the year that we get from excise tax and those other types of uh revenue streams so assuming on the best year possible we get $400,000 that's all we get and we need 3.2 million to actually run the schools every year so what we do is we transfer money from the education fund into our operating fund um the state allows us to only transfer 15% of that education fund um that comes out to roughly you know 1.4 million close to that um and then the referendum makes up the other 1.4 that we need to keep operating so generally speaking um if we still have my slides available by any chance this right here is something else I put together and again this is assuming the best case scenario where we
054actually get a full $400,000 for our operations um so those various taxes that 400,000 that makes up this small piece of the pie here for the operations that we need um the education fund that we can transfer from that makes up about 44% and then the referendum makes up the other 44% so this would be the equivalent if if the referendum were to not pass this year it would be the equivalent of us losing 44% of the funding we use to operate the schools now I don't know about you but if I lost 44% of my pay I don't think I would be you know getting very far with uh you know my house my car the five kids I need to feed um can you explain more about the education fund and the operating
055fund you have really don't with the education fund how it's funded we get that money and how you transfer 15% how that is operating two different funds yeah so the education fund is uh purely from State funds it doesn't come from your property taxes at all um it is based on how many students we have in the school system it's somewhere around 6,000 rough 7,000 7,000 now per student per student um what we are allowed to do is transfer 15% of that into the operations fund which we need to do because of our situation but I'd also like to point out that also takes away from our education fund which pays our teachers and adds on our programs and all those types of things so we're pulling from you know one of our extremely important
056resources to keep the schools running but that means that our teachers may not get the raise that they really deserve it means that we might not have as many programs as our kids deserve it means that we are constantly in this tug-of-war between how these funds work um so the education fund like I said though that does not come from your property taxes at all that's just state funded now saying that I want to remind you that the state totes about their uh nearly $3 billion Surplus up to six um yeah so if if if they've got billions of dollars and let's you know let's even assume that they they need to keep a certain amount of that on hand but if they have that much money and we're sitting here asking our residents to
057you know pay a referendum to be able to keep our buses in in action here what kind of questions does that raise what's what's going on at the state level so I would encourage everyone to make sure that you're paying attention to who you're voting for for our state representatives as well we need we need people that will represent us well down at at the state level if we ever want to get to a point where we're not asking for a referendum I would also just go into people when you guys are KN people are knocking our doors to inform everyone but to inform everyone that the state does have a $6 billion do Surplus and if people ask why the one thing we everyone should love to know is that's the same question that
058everyone else wants to know as well um there's like I said our roads aren't the best public education is in the bottom you know the bottom you know 10% of the country you know Indiana public education if it's the one thing like I always compare it to a house all right I have let's say I have let's say I have you know $200,000 in the bank but guess what if my roof's leaking if my windows are broken um if my do is falling off the hinges if my foundation's cracked there's no reason for me to brag about having $200,000 in the bank when everything else in my house looks like crap falling apart yeah falling apart at the same time the same thing with Indiana what do what they're doing with our tax dollars and
059that $6 billion Surplus they need to break into that and informing people of that that is a that's a huge advantage that we we have as as when people we all go knock on our doors to inform our voting base of that c area and so that's that's what I wanted to point out to people here as well I mean there's only so much that you know a school board can do um it's not like we can I've kind of told people before we aren't a business I'm not Apple I can't just drop a new iPhone and all of a sudden we got enough money to you know run the schools another year um uh some of our funding obviously like I said you know we get our education fund from the state based on
060our enrollment um but as far as operating the schools which requires $3.2 million we on on our best year we get $400,000 and that's it um with uh Transportation school bus transportation being roughly $800,000 utilities and insurance that takes up roughly 60 65% of our operating budget just with those three big ticket items um so that's why unfortunately of course I hate to talk about this because I don't want to do this but you know looking forward um if if the referendum does not pass we're going to have to take a very hard look at cancelling school bus transportation it's very it's a very real possibility um the soonest we would be able to do that would be in February um unfortunately that's that's the kind of scenarios we have to look at right now
061because of the situation we're in and I can assure you no one here wants wants that to happen um even if it's my own selfish reasons I've got three kids that ride the bus and you know maybe I don't want to take him to school in the morning no um but uh you know at the end of the day I I try to tell people I have again my my family is here I have three kids in the school system one that's going into the school system next year uh I've got four nephews in the school system right now actually five yeah five um so when I when I'm up here trying to talk about these things when I'm when I'm making decisions as a school board member I mean I have skin in the
062game it's not like like I'm not involved it's not like it doesn't affect me it affects me it affects my whole family so um when we talk about these things just make sure you know I wanted to make sure that uh you know you realize I'm not making a decision lightly and this is not something we want to be even having a discussion about right now I don't want to be talking about cancelling school buses that's I don't that sounds just bizarre to me that we even have to talk about it but with as expensive as it is we don't really have much of a choice when push comes to shots uh how many employees roughly from the district um I don't know how many live in the district and work um here but I
063mean we have roughly 250 employees total correct yes that's correct the majority of the employees getting back to your question that live in our community they really are the non-certified staff the secretaries the clerks the prayer professionals those folks and we haven't broken it down to know a specific number as to how many of those people there are unfortunately do the way our schools are required to teach certain subjects I don't think it would make yeah if you don't mind that way our online audience yeah um my question was uh how many folks that live in Lake Station School District actually work at the school um that being said um I'm sure it's quite substantial like uh Dr KB liver said uh most of those folks are your uh bus drivers your peras uh your
064maintenance staff uh so on and so forth and I'm sure quite a few teachers as well so not only is a failed referendum and a dwindling school budget just uh detrial to the school but it's also detrimental to to the health of the community uh on a national average 6% of your home value is tied to the health of your school so if you have a healthy thriving school you can count on 6% of your your home value what you can sell it for if you're willing to take out say your house is worth $100,000 if you're willing to give up $6,000 right off the top I mean I know I couldn't do that I couldn't feel good about doing that especially to save Pocket Change well and to that point as well um I
065I don't know what the latest number is on it but my wife is pretty good about these things and so she said that there was something about roughly 60% of the people uh that live in a community end up back in that community and so as I said my whole family lives here um so with with that I mean you know we have people that are working at these schools that you know we had to make difficult Cuts this past summer before the school year started to be try to be as proactive as we could with the budget and no one wanted to make any of those cuts whether it was to extracurricular activities or to our staff or teachers um that's part of the reason why we made some of the tough decisions we
066did with school bus transportation to try and keep as many of those jobs as possible um um but something you know to keep in mind is this is our community you're educating the people that are very very likely to be your neighbors one day and I would hope that you would want those those neighbors to be good citizens and be mindful and uh and polite and if we don't have a strong school system to teach them right from wrong in a lot of ways uh you could be looking at some some terrible situations in the future and I'm not just talking about annoying neighbors but you know even dangerous situations with uh you know criminal activity and things I want to piggy back on the community part Jason being the councilman for Lake Station who
067are the two biggest Employers in this city so you I believe the answer to that is River Forest and Lake Station schools um but I do want to point out something um my wife recently was at uh in the hospital and there was three uh there was a a CNA and uh two housekeeping members that came up they had overheard my wife talking about me being on the city council which was real fun for me because they came and attacked me thinking that we control those schools and whatnot um they were trying to uh or they were looking to purchase homes in Lake Station and they said they decided against it because of the recent events with the three days in school and um and they were talking about the money and what are they
068doing with the money and I had to explain to them what's being explained here because we had the opportunity of uh hearing from Dr liver he came to a council meeting broke it down quite well so thank you for that because I would have been like lost going uh but uh the domino effect that when you don't have like somebody was point you were pointing out earlier a healthy school system the community hurts and and and I'm sure everybody's jumped on Facebook lately and seen a lot of uh a lot of misinformation and and how people uh talk about our community um not just the schools you know our lack of having a grocery store and but we don't have an expanding uh uh Community we're not going to get any of those things um
069people do look at the schools when they go to purchase a home they want to know that they're going to be in school all five days getting a quality education but some of that comes from the fact if you have the courage as a community to say yeah we're willing to give up this little bit uh so that the kids can get what we had when we went to school I went I went to River Forest please don't boob me uh but uh yeah there you go see I got a cheering section over here but um but had had a lot of friends that uh played you know I played little league and one with kids over here at uh Edison but so it's always been these two schools and I wanted to as a
070councilman I wanted to succeed I'm uh you know I wouldn't have gotten elected had it not been for Eagle votes too just as much as the in votes so um there's I'm hoping that uh some of the Mis information can be um I guess uh dispelled by election time but um we we we need to seriously look at it and see that there is a domino effect in not doing this um our community could fall as well yeah thank you uh we have someone up front here as well than okay I have like two or three things the first thing is I heard you guys saying that the state has $6 billion do Surplus how do we as a community tap into that for them to help us get funding if they're giving us 1.4
071already it's it's gonna yeah that's a very good question that $6 billion is a rainy day fund it's they pointed out for the state of Indiana so it would really be the general assembly and the governor of our our state be willing to access those funds for whatever purpose they choose yeah so it it all comes down to who's representing you at the state level um and that's something you know we we have to take a good look at and make sure you're electing people with your best interest the community's best interest in mind not uh not private companies or organizations that uh that don't put into the communities like we do um what else did you have so basically the state whoever we get to represent us will funel that money back out into
072the communities yeah if they if they see a need for it and you know we have we can't just ask them I mean you you can certainly ask but um yeah um you would you would join a large number of people who have been pushing have been you know we have even with the Indiana School Board Association they have people that Lobby for positive change for the schools and it's still just a matter of you know making sure that the right people are in the those positions elected positions to make the the decision that's best for the state best for the community so okay and can we as a community raise money for the school like our school district without the state like all on you like okay you guys rais $200,000 so you don't
073get this 200,000 from us or can we do that as a community well I mean we are always happy to take donations for different programs and things like that now what we're talking about here is a scale that is probably not going to be able to be met by those types of action yeah um as much as I wish we could um we we we do appreciate any support we get a lot of support obviously for uh athletic programs and some for academic programs as well um so by all means anyone that wants to you know help the community help help our schools we we appreciate anything that can be given okay we've given you a lot of information tonight and and by leaving tonight if you just leave remembering these two things one we
074are not the only School District in the region or even in the state that has to ask their communities for referendums in some communities have two referendums to support their local school so we are not alone in asking for referendum the second thing I want you to know is the question is purposely deceiving to people they want people to read it and they want people to automatically think oh my gosh my taxes are going up 65% I can't afford that who can and believe me the school River for school district Lake Station School District we would not be asking for an out rageous increase in property taxes what that simply means is the referendum the 54 cents that we're collecting from the referendum 65% more of that revenue is going into the operations fund not
075that you're paying 65% increase in your taxes the state is a referendum State many schools have referendums some have two the question is deceiving please don't let it confuse you do you have something else I saw that you had that look on your face so the visual I guess that's what it is with everybody and everybody is getting could you take the microphone thank you so much the visual of it all is that everybody is getting confused because we think it's something different when it's not so we just need to put it out to the community with paper like knocking on doors for everyone to understand understand like what it really is in order for us to get it past and and we have been doing that a little bit the the that right there
076that that door hanger that is what we are you know of course giving to people or leaving on the door if they don't answer I just want to throw it out there I am coordinating I've been walking my you know every single day I need volunteers so if anybody want to please come see me they have definitely going out um they they stopped by my house actually yesterday uh we had some fun did they convince you to vote Yes oh I was already convinced tell that yeah so they're definitely out there um they're not a huge areas so again just in case anybody here anybody that wants to help her and we walk after school and we'll also walk in the weekends won't we yeah I mean yeah [Music] I will say also if you
077I will say also that if you go home and you find people near you that want to volunteer on our web page there is a volunteers button you can click that and still sign up and Liz who is coordinating it and doing an amazing job she'll get your email and be able to contact you through that as well so you know share word that we're always looking for volunteers and so just like we were talking about you know raising funds for the school I mean you know using your time as well is a really valuable way to help out I I know that they had a small group on uh was it Saturday I believe and they hit you know something like 300 and some OD I think I did a route too with my
078wife so I think we're close to 400 houses uh just in those couple hours that you know we were out on Saturday so every little bit helps um exponentially so yeah it does help if you have parents that school here it does make a difference I know you guys had some people that had kids in the school when you guys had your referend go door too it's hard to you know if you have a teacher or something those you know cynical part of them says well you want this because of this if you have a parent they're like okay wait a minute they're more Happ to listen you know and say okay well they want it for the same reasons why I would want it then so my little two you what that's a great
079thing you get students out see teachers you know I don't know yeah Jacob go ahead and hand in the microphone please yeah I was saying uh when when [Laughter] when students come out to door knock or or to their teacher comes to their front door and it's oh my God it's Mrs Smith you know my third grade teacher I haven't seen you forever or hey we'll see you tomorrow in class I mean kids just light up I I know a few times that I went out with groups of teachers during ours that I think kind of sold a lot of people when they when they saw how happy they were especially the young kids to see their kids high school students maybe maybe not sometimes you know it depends uh I know I've I've been
080in that situation myself personally uh that's a story for another day uh but anyway uh yeah those those are those are great things and when they see hey this person's given up their time not only do they watch my kid all day you know and teach my my kid but they're also saying hey please help you know they're they're taking time out of their dat to to show that they care and that they want to continue to do that job and do the best that they can with all the tools available for your kid and it's it's really something special I think um and obviously I know this is you know been a while so I want to make sure is there anything else that you wanted to cover um no you did a great
081job I'll gladly um stay stick around a little bit if anyone else has any more questions and everything but I don't want to tie everyone else up for you know any longer than I need to but you know we we really appreciate it coming out and um you know it's really important to try to get this information to as many people as possible as you might might notice um but uh by all means if if you have to head out or anything like that I don't want to tie you up anymore but if you have any other questions I'll Stick Around afterwards and talk to you as well um where we can address them as a group but yeah and I do once again I want to thank the school board from River Forest uh
082they were kind enough to write a letter supporting Lake Station schools and endorsing uh your support for the referendum so thank you thank you very much for that that's [Applause] huge as well as the mayor and the city council and I really appreciate councilman that resolution to support our referendum here in Lake Station so thank you again for that appreciate that that does wrap up the informational part of our evening tonight but we will certainly stay around and answer any questions that you have uh if you'd like to ask questions or make comments now that would be fine if you'd rather speak to us one onone later on uh this evening as people gather their belongings and get ready to leave we will stay around and answer your questions too and uh feel free to
083make sure you grab some information on on the way out or a sign if you don't have one for your yard yard already also so well I thought yard time was a requirement for got to read the read the fine print to everything right thank you everyone for coming I appreciate your time thank you so much