If the Oregon-Davis school referendum fails to pass, property owners may still find themselves paying higher taxes in the coming years. That’s according to Superintendent Dr. Don Harman. The school corporation is asking voters to consider a property tax of up to 29 cents per $100 of assessed valuation for an eight-year period, replacing a 19-cent tax that’s set to expire next year.
Harman says that if the measure fails, Oregon-Davis would have to borrow money. “As I’ve looked into it, we could secure a loan or a bond for roughly $1.8 million,” he says, “and the tax rate for that $1.8 million would be anywhere between 15 cents to 35 cents, depending on the interest rate and depending on how the length of that loan would be.”
He adds that might have to be done multiple times, to raise the same amount of money that could be generated from the referendum, “So at the end of the eight years, the tax rate could anywhere between 40 cents to a dollar, versus the 29 cents.”
Harman says the state’s school funding formula is leading many school districts to incorporate referendums into their funding strategy. “This is nothing new around the State of Indiana, and it’s just not rural schools,” he explains. “You can go around the Indianapolis area. You can go down to Columbus. You can go to Churubusco, for example. You can go to Anderson. I would say from what I’ve gathered, there will be anywhere between 12 and 15 school districts in the State of Indiana that have a referendum on their ballot in May.”
You can hear our entire in-depth interview with Dr. Don Harman this Sunday at noon CDT on Kankakee Valley Viewpoints on K99.3 WKVI-FM.
