Indianapolis voters will decide by Nov. 3 whether to approve a new school property tax referendum, and the coalition asking them to vote yes has about two months to make its case.
The referendum would generate an estimated $95 million a year split between the Indianapolis Public Schools district and about 60 charter schools. Early voting starts Oct. 6, leaving organizers a narrow window to explain a tax rate increase before ballots are cast.
Public funds can’t be used to campaign for school referendums, so political action committees, or PACs, must be created to raise separate funding for the campaign.
The creation of the PAC, called Vote Yes for Indianapolis Public Education Campaign, marks some of the first efforts in which organizations supportive of charter schools, charter school leaders and leaders from the Indianapolis Public Schools district are working together to pass a school referendum question. It’s a considerable shift from past years.
In 2023, families and charter school leaders opposed a planned IPS operating referendum because it would not have provided equal per-student funding to the district’s charter partners or the city’s independent charter schools. Local advocacy organizations The Mind Trust and Stand for Children did not support the $51.7 million measure in part because IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said the district would not share funds with non-IPS-affiliated charters. IPS eventually abandoned the proposal.
On Tuesday, leaders of those groups and other charter school proponents attended the event.
The new joint effort follows the Indiana General Assembly's transfer of authority to set new school property tax rates from the IPS board to the mayor-appointed IPEC board. Under the same law that created IPEC, any new referendum rates approved by voters will require property tax revenue to be shared with charter schools that enroll students who live in the IPS district.
IPEC’s executive director, Karega Rausch, said during Tuesday’s launch of the campaign that it was a unique gathering of some of the city’s most influential education groups to support the new referendum.
“It is a rare gift to look out into this crowd and to see people supportive of IPS schools, see people supportive of charter schools, see people supportive of just good, high-quality schools, irrespective of governance type, coming together, unified to pass this referendum,” Rausch said.
How much the PAC has raised at this point was not clear Tuesday, and public filings for the PAC weren’t available yet on the Indiana Secretary of State’s website.
Rausch did not say whether the campaign had a fundraising goal in mind.
“The most important part about this is winning in November,” Rausch told WFYI.
The campaign’s co-chairs include:
- Diane Arnold — former IPS board member and board president
- Marianne Glick — chair of the board of directors for the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Family Foundation
- Bart Peterson — former Indianapolis mayor
- William Shrewsberry — former deputy mayor
- Morgan Snyder — parent of an Indianapolis Public Schools student
IPEC is asking voters to approve a four-year property tax rate of 37.2 cents per $100 of assessed value. For a home at the district's median assessed value of about $150,000, the rate would cost around $221 a year. That's about $8.71 a month, or $105 a year, more than the current rate, according to a board presentation.
The advisory committee for the PAC also includes:
- Barato Britt — president and CEO of the Edna Martin Christian Center
- Marlin Jackson — former Indianapolis Colt
- Jay Height - executive director of Shepherd Community
- Tom King — community and business leader
- Lacy Johnson — partner at Taft Law Firm
- Tony Mason — president and CEO of the Indianapolis Urban League
- Venita Moore — former IPS board member and board president
- Andrew Neal — CEO of Outreach Inc.
- Max Siegel — CEO of USA Track and Field
- Ahmed Young — president and CEO of the Indianapolis Foundation
Even if the new referendum rate passes, IPS would still need to cut about $20 million more from its budget, which is on top of the $24 million IPS has already announced, as its 2018 property tax referendum expires at the end of the year and leaves a roughly $40 million gap. The district has also laid off dozens of employees.
Johnson, the IPS superintendent, said if the new referendum passes, she’s confident that the district will avoid a complete state takeover.
“There will be hard choices ahead where we'll have to continue to do even further reductions, even with the successful passage of this referendum, but ultimately, we want the future of our district to be in the hands of our community and not of state legislators who aren't here,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that passage of the referendum is critical to retain high-quality teachers and provide stability to families in the district.
“We made sort of a baseline promise to our students in 2023 around the kinds of experiences that they deserve to have, that we want for our own children,” Johnson said. “We want to be able to maintain that level of experience and that level of opportunity for our kids, and we need the referendum to be able to do that.”
More information about the referendum is available at the PAC’s campaign website: yesforindianapolispubliceducationreferendum.com.
The general election is Nov. 3. Early voting starts Oct. 6.
Contact WFYI Government Reporter Caroline Beck at cbeck@wfyi.org.
