Only about a third of eligible voters turned out to vote in a special election Tuesday to decide on a nearly $63 million referendum to address capacity issues and prepare for future growth at the Silver Creek School Corporation.
Most of them voted overwhelmingly against the measure.
Election night results show 3,759 people, or 94%, voted against the referendum. Just 238 voters — nearly 6% — were in favor of the measure.
Only people registered to vote in the Silver Creek School Corporation were eligible. That accounted for 12,356.
The millions raised through increased property taxes would have funded a new elementary school and addition to the primary school for more classrooms. The plans also included adding classrooms to the elementary and middle schools. They would have also added upgrades to the high school, such as a new HVAC system.
But the proposed changes came with a big price tag. Residential property owners in the district would have paid on average around 44% more in property taxes to the school corporation each year. People with business properties would have paid an average of 33% more.
School administrators have said they needed the funding to address current capacity issues and prepare for upcoming growth.
“In our community, we see subdivisions going up now. We see apartments going up,” Todd Balmer, assistant superintendent and CFO at the Silver Creek School Corporation, said Tuesday before results were in. “Students are coming our way. We fully anticipate we’re going to continue to grow. We’re basing…what we’re building off the best data we have.”
He said Silver Creek schools have had capacity issues for years. They’ve had more agency to address that since splitting off from Borden and Henryville schools — formerly known collectively as West Clark Community Schools — in 2020.
Balmer said class sizes range year to year, though most are within the optimal range.
But they have space issues, with some special instruction teachers working from carts without a dedicated classroom and small-group instruction happening in the hallways. At the middle school, a group presentation room is being used as a classroom.
“To say that our administrators are being creative with what they [have] is an understatement,” he said.
Heather Ratchford went to Silver Creek High School and lives in the district. She said she knows Silver Creek needs attention — that’s why she and others supported the West Clark split. For years, Silver Creek was prevented from making significant improvements as part of that district, she said.
She said she and others also supported a $100 million project focused on renovating the high school.
But she questions how officials have spent that funding and said she expected improvements at the lower-level schools.
Ratchford, who also runs the Facebook page “No To Silver Creek Tax Hikes,” said she thinks Silver Creek leaders should have addressed issues with classrooms instead of other things she called “wants.”
“We don't have an issue with them updating the high school,” she said. “I guess there's just a lot of questions about some of the decisions that were made with the funding and where it went first.”
Asking for $63 million now, Ratchford said, is too much.
“It's just a lot to put on a really, really tiny school district full of just middle class, middle income people,” she said. “We just simply can't afford it right now.”
Ratchford and her husband voted against the referendum Tuesday afternoon. She estimated it would have raised their taxes by around $500 a year.
“I don't think for us personally, it'll put us out of our home, but it's going to make things tighter for us,” she said Tuesday afternoon.
Balmer, the assistant superintendent, said Tuesday that if the referendum failed, “then we take a step back” and consider other options.
“We know we’ve got to still look at creating capacity,” he said. “The one thing we don’t want is to continue to see growth and have absolutely nowhere to put them.”
He said an immediate option could be to look at adding modular classrooms while district officials continue to explore other ideas.
“What doesn't stop is we keep showing up and providing a top-notch educational experience for our students,” he said. “And I think that's what we do, that's what we're going to do, no matter what the outcome is of this vote.”
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the number of people who voted against the referendum.
Coverage of Southern Indiana is funded, in part, by Samtec Inc., the Hazel & Walter T. Bales Foundation, and the Caesars Foundation of Floyd County.
