Referendum recommended to keep Celestine open
Thursday evening, it was standing room only as a crowd of constituents was on hand to hear the results of a feasibility study completed by the Brookston, Ind. firm Administrator Assistance presented during the Northeast Dubois School Board meeting. Bruce Hatton and Steve Sonntag, representatives for the firm, gave the presentation to the school board and attendees.
Hatton and Sonntag reported the school corporation was in a serious financial condition as it faced revenue losses for the general fund due to declining enrollment. The corporation currently has 899 students spread across four schools, Celestine Elementary, Dubois Elementary, Northeast Dubois Middle and high school.
The student population is expected to continue to decline annually. The consultants estimated that amount over the next four years and determined there could be as many as 44 fewer students enrolled in the schools by the 2019-20 school year.
With the current amount of funding per student at about $5,397, the corporation is expected to lose about $70,000 in funding annually according to the report. [pg. 15]
To facilitate the preferred decision to keep all the schools in the corporation open, Administrator Assistance recommended the corporation create a referendum for the spring primary to support a local general fund tax levy of 18 cents for $100 of assessed value. The study found that with the average property value in the Northeast Dubois School Corporation being about $133,200, this would translate to about $240 per taxpayer per year. [pg. 44]
The additional tax levy would create about $540,000 in additional funding for the school corporation.
The extra funding would cover the current and projected operating deficit of about $200,000 and add about $140,000 to retain and recruit teachers. About $200,000 would go to continue the maintenance of Celestine Elementary, add music and drama programming, make a student service social worker a full-time position and maintain extracurricular and athletic programs.
The tax rate for 2015 was $0.81 per $100 of assessed value. The rates in 2015 for the three other Dubois County school corporations were $1.02 per $100 in Southeast, $1.08 per $100 in Greater Jasper and $1.21 per $100 in Southwest.
On top of the referendum, the firm recommended a myriad of avenues to explore to decrease expenses and increase funding. Those included examining the benefits packages for staff; combining sections of classes; utilize distance learning and allow students to attend classes at neighboring school; sell or rent unused, unnecessary real estate; incentivize energy conservancy practices; explore exclusive beverage and vending contracts, add advertising support to the athletics programs and facilities; share library services with the public library; and create funding mechanism to accept private donations. [pg. 37]
Without the passage of the referendum, the firm recommended the corporation would likely need to close Celestine Elementary to offset the current and projected deficit. The firm also recommended that the corporation would need to explore such drastic actions as completing a feasibility study to consolidate with a neighboring school corporation.
The board will discuss the study at the Tuesday, Jan. 19, board meeting. The meeting will be held at the high school cafeteria, 4711 N. Dubois Rd. NE, Dubois.
Here is a story about the school funding issue.
