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ECS Residents Set To Vote On District's Referendum This Week

Captured via Facebook Live

Voters in the Elkhart Community School district will decide whether to pass the district’s $122-million-dollar referendum on Tuesday.

The school district is asking taxpayers for just over $15 million a year for eight years. The majority of that money will go to making teacher salaries competitive and reducing out-of-pocket health insurance costs for employees.

 

Superintendent Steve Thalheimer said the district has lost 40 percent of its certified staff in the last three years to better-paying school districts. 

 

He said the new state budget – which includes almost $2 billion for education spending – will help the district boost teacher salaries. But, he said it won’t necessarily make those salaries competitive with surrounding districts.

 

“With those infusion of dollars from the state budget, yes, we’ll be able to get to $40,000," Thalheimer said. "But I don’t think Wa-Nee and Penn are just going to sit there and wait for us to catch up.”

 

Including the expected payout from the third round of CARES Act funding, the district has received an additional $40 million over the course of the pandemic. 

 

Thalheimer said that money helps, too; however, it can only be used to fund supplemental programs – like summer school, tutoring, and social-emotional learning – to offset learning loss caused by the pandemic.

 

“All of those things are abilities for us to help make sure that our instruction is really strong [and] we’re able to fill those learning gaps," he said. "I cannot use these dollars to pay a third-grade teacher.”

 

Bob Barnes lives in the Elkhart school district. He said he understands the district has to work around the strings attached to federal funding, but he said he can’t get past the tax hike the referendum will put on his property taxes.

 

“It’s gonna cost a lot of money," Barnes said. "I got retired people in my neighborhood. This is going to be a hard hit for them.”

 

Heidi Compton said she’s also concerned about how the tax hike will affect people on fixed incomes, like her mother. As a former school employee, though, she said the district has to do something to prevent staff turnover.

 

“I know a lot of the teachers, I know bus drivers, I know food service, and you have to retain good people. You really do," Compton said. "And it’s going to be even harder now because there’s places that are paying really well.”

 

The current referendum would also extend the district’s existing transportation referendum, which passed in 2014 and aims to keep pay for bus drivers competitive.  

 

Michelle Ivey is in her 18th year as a transportation worker for Elkhart Community Schools. She said the referendum is important to her not only as a bus driver, but also as a parent and grandparent. 

 

“I’m seeing opportunities for my grandkids that I wasn’t given. My children had more than I did, but I even see more for my grandchildren," Ivey said. "I have three different views of it. I don’t see any negative.”

 

The referendum vote will be held Tuesday, May 4.

 

Elkhart Community Schools is the licensee of W-V-P-E.

 

This story has been updated.

 

Contact Gemma atgdicarlo@wvpe.orgor follow her on Twitter at@gemma_dicarlo.

 

If you appreciate this kind of journalism on your local NPR station, please support it by donatinghere. 

Gemma DiCarlo came to Indiana by way of Athens, Georgia. She graduated from the University of Georgia in 2020 with a degree in Journalism and certificates in New Media and Sustainability. She has radio experience from her time as associate producer of Athens News Matters, the flagship public affairs program at WUGA-FM.
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