The first of two town hall meetings regarding the Southeast Dubois School Referendum was held last night.
This town hall meeting was held to give more information on the topic as well as for the public to ask questions.
Southeast Dubois School Superintendent Dr. Jamie Pund says that this referendum is being brought up because of several different factors.
Pund gave a presentation to the public noting how funding for a school corporation like Southeast Dubois is broken down and why a referendum is important for the corporation.
Pund presented a graph showing that expenses have been higher than Southeast Dubois’s revenue over the past 15 years.
Southeast Dubois has also seen a drop in enrollment over the last 19 years.
Pund says solutions to this are to either drop staff and programs, consolidate with other schools to become one school corporation, or go forward with the referendum.
The referendum would increase property taxes 19 cents max, with the money from the taxes going into the school’s education fund. The money will not and cannot go into any other funds, like a rainy day fund.
Tonight will be another town hall meeting for those who missed it last night. The meeting will be held at the Ferdinand Community Center at 6:30 pm.
