Latest news with #SenateEnrolledAct287
Chicago Tribune
03-06-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Duneland voters may see school referendum renewal earlier because of state law change
The Duneland School Corporation might ask the voters this November to renew an operating referendum because of a change recently enacted by the state legislature. Superintendent Chip Pettit during Monday's school board meeting emphasized that he hasn't decided what he will recommend. The board will make the final decision. Duneland officials are still analyzing the potential financial impact of Senate Enrolled Act 1 on the school budget. The wide-ranging bill includes provisions that cap how much local governments and school districts can realize from an increase in property values in coming years. Voters in 2019 approved the 7-year referendum, which provided $8.8 million annually to supplement the school corporation's educational programs. The levy is currently calculated at 22 cents per $1,000 of property valuation. The funds generated make up 10% of the 2025 budget, which was $89 million. Originally, Pettit said it was likely that he was going to ask Duneland voters to renew the operating referendum in the May 2026 primary. But one of the changes with Senate Enrolled Act 1 is that school districts can no longer put an operating referendum up for a vote in a primary. Referendums now must appear on the November general election ballot. 'As a result, once specifics to how Senate Enrolled Act 1 will impact the Duneland community and school corporation (are known), I may ask the Board to consider placing the referendum on the ballot in November 2025,' Pettit said. If the renewal doesn't appear in November 2025, it would have to be on the November 2026 ballot. The Duneland School Corporation would like to know if the operating referendum is renewed because it would 'provide cost certainty for budget development in 2027 and beyond,' Pettit said. 'With our current referendum funds lasting through 2026, I believe it would be difficult to ask the Board to approve a budget in the fall of 2026, for 2027, without knowing whether referendum funding is available,' Pettit said. About half of the school corporation's budget comes from property taxes collected within the Duneland School Corporation while the state provides the remaining amount. 'We are currently working with our financial advisors to sort out the projected impact of SEA (Senate Enrolled Act) 1,' Pettit said. Pettit said one certainty is that inflation in the past few years has been significant, causing operating costs for the school corporation to increase. 'If tax revenue decreases, the budget cannot support the same or an increased level of expenses, which means that reductions and cost-cutting measures must be taken,' Pettit said. School Board President Brandon Kroft, during his presentation on the recent Indiana legislative session, noted that Senate Enrolled Act 287 eventually settled on keeping the vote for school board members to the general election. The change is that candidates for the school board can declare a political party affiliation or choose to say they are independent or make no party declaration at all. School board elections before had been non-partisan.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
If we want better political representation, let's stop voting straight ticket in Indiana
Indiana is one of only six states to allow straight-ticket voting. (Getty Images) A few years back, I was knocking on doors for a school board candidate I supported. It was a day of productive conversations about transportation, curriculum, funding, taxes, extracurriculars, school lunches, and so much more. That was until I knocked on what was probably the twentieth door of the day. The man who opened it immediately saw I was holding a pamphlet, and simply asked, 'Which party?' I was frozen for a split second, before gathering my wits and explaining. 'Actually, this is for a school board race! The candidates are nonpartisan.' I saw a look of disappointment flash across his face. But the conversation that continued from there was just as rich as the ones I'd had before. By the end of our chat, I think we both learned something about the role of schools in our community. Sadly, conversations like these are rare in Indiana, because we are one of only seven states that still allows straight ticket voting. Straight ticket voting was once widespread nationwide, but most states have abolished it since the 1960s. While Indiana limited its use in 2016, it persists for most major votes. It's a practice that rewards partisan ignorance — you don't even have to look at candidate names. Check a box, R or D, and almost all votes are marked. I say almost because some candidates, such as judges and school board members, are left out of a straight ticket vote. As a teacher, I'm grateful. And I'm relieved that this exclusion was maintained in the final version of Senate Enrolled Act 287, which put Indiana in a club of just nine other states requiring school board candidates to declare a political party. But I found it telling to hear how the bill's author, Sen. Gary Byrne, justified adding parties into school board elections: 'People don't know who they're voting for…Knowing which political party a candidate identifies with will help Hoosiers know what kind of principles that person would apply to their position.' CONTACT US Of course, this assumes that there are only two ways to govern – Republican or Democrat. In education, as in any other sector, nothing could be further from the truth. The partisan binary in a straight ticket simplifies a much more complicated discourse, enabling people to be uninformed when they vote. If everything comes down to party, we may as well allow artificial intelligence to determine election results based on population characteristics and party affiliation. But that's not how democracy is supposed to work. Democracy requires an open debate that transcends parties. It requires voters to weigh heavily the responsibility of their choice. Advocates of straight ticket voting claim it's popular, but if that were true, Indiana wouldn't have one of the most abysmal voter turnout rates in the nation. In fact, the partisan heuristic is just as likely to turn off voters. Both of our major political parties are deeply unpopular, with solid majorities viewing both unfavorably. About half of Americans don't even identify with a political party, and those rates continue to decline. The data is clear: straight ticket voting is about tribal self-preservation, not voter education. That's how we often find ourselves stuck with problematic, mean, and ethically questionable candidates sliding into positions of power, especially down the ballot. There's too few options on the table. By emphasizing partisan affiliation over all else, proponents of straight-ticket voting assume that voters are too busy or uninformed to understand real issues. That's a dismissive way to understand the electorate. So as voters, how do we push back? It's simple: just refrain from voting a straight ticket. We should feel uneasy if we put someone into power without knowing what they are capable of. Get to know the full ballot ahead of time — your coroner, your auditor, your treasurer. Ensure that you walk into the voting room and recognize every name. Google them. Email them. Call them. Ask questions early. When election day comes, you can confidently cast each vote, with no abstentions, knowing exactly how they'll use the power you're giving them It takes time. But when we stop using the straight ticket, maybe Indiana will send it to the dustbin where it belongs. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Our View: Hoosiers must vote through confusion
There are two reasons, likely more, that Hoosier voters might seem confused about coming elections. Voters should be determined to register and then perform their civic duty at the polls despite any such bewilderment. Now, the reasons for confusion. Senate Enrolled Act 10 requires county voter registration offices to conduct voter list maintenance programs identifying those who have not cast a ballot in the two most recent general elections. If you miss two general elections, the county office will send a notice to the address you have on file, which means a resident who has moved, even inside the same precinct, may never see the notice. The maintenance program is expected to cost about $500,000 statewide. That same law, however, prohibits voters from being removed from the rolls if they haven't cast a ballot. So which is correct? This will have to do for an answer: Just go to the polls regularly so that you aren't removed from the voter list. Also under the new law, students at state colleges cannot use university-issued IDs to vote. That provision perhaps makes sense to prohibit voting by an out-of-state resident who goes to an Indiana college and tries to vote in two states. However, no study was conducted to see how many double-dippers are out there. Instead, the Legislature erred on the side of discouraging voting among college students. But there's yet more reason to be confused. Think your school board is too liberal or too conservative? Well, now you'll know. Maybe. Senate Enrolled Act 287 dictates that school board candidates must: • Declare a political party affiliation ... • Or declare to be an independent ... • Or elect not to disclose any affiliation or independence. To claim a party affiliation, school board candidates must have voted in that party in each of the two previous primaries. If not, the candidate can obtain written certification from a county party chairman verifying they are a member of the party. Clear as mud? Indiana joins four states mandating partisan school boards, according to Ballotpedia. The partisan election will effectively eliminate candidate-by-candidate voting based on stated positions and experience. Instead, many Hoosier voters, rather than doing their homework, will merely choose candidates based on party affiliation. The legislative session saw numerous bills — many controlled by Sen. Mike Gaskill, R-Pendleton — touted to insure integrity in the election process. But voter fraud in this state has been negligible. The far larger problem is voter apathy. The May 2024 primary saw a scant 17% voter turnout, rising to 62% for the Trump-Harris showdown last November. We'll have to see if the new laws scare away more Hoosiers, particularly those who have been unfairly removed from voter rolls. Or those who don't even know they've been purged.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Partisan school board bill narrowly avoids tie vote, goes to governor
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith closes the voting machine for legislation making Indiana school boards partisan on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (Leslie Bonilla Muñiz/Indiana Capital Chronicle) Indiana is set to join the handful of states running partisan school board elections after a squeaker of a final vote Thursday — pending a decision from Republican Gov. Mike Braun. All 50 members of the Senate rushed to participate in the 26-24 concurrence tally, with one straggler bursting into the chamber just before Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith closed the voting machine. The GOP supermajority barely nabbed the constitutional minimum of 26 to avoid a tie-breaking vote from Beckwith, who presides over the Senate. 'My gosh, the wokeness they have in these school boards, even in Republican areas,' remarked Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis. 'If you don't believe this harms our kids, look at our scores.' 'We don't know who the best people are with the best philosophy and why shouldn't we know that?' he asked. He was among those supporters who believe school boards are too liberal. Forty-one states provide for nonpartisan school board elections, according to Ballotpedia. Five allow for either, depending on the district, and four do partisan elections. Senate Enrolled Act 287 would add Indiana to the latter group by requiring partisan designations on general election ballots. Opponents argued the changes would introduce or exacerbate partisanship in schools. 'We heard the quiet part out loud: this bill is about fear of … diversity of thought, fear of challenging the status quo,' said Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington. 'Why else would we turn school board elections into party primaries? To push out the independent thinker, to challenge or to silence the community member who doesn't check the right partisan box but knows how to lead with expertise, experience and integrity.' Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, asserted the legislation attempts to 'fix a problem that doesn't exist in my community.' 'My four school boards — I can tell you probably within 90% certainty what I think their political affiliations are — but it's never an issue,' she said. '… Those school board members focus on the policy and how to get our K-12 kids to where they need to be to be successful.' Author Sen. Gary Byrne, R-Byrneville, said it actually 'gives the voters what they want.' 'If you're getting your phones lit up from the school board association or maybe the superintendents — the voters want this,' he told his colleagues just before the vote. The measure would require nominating petitions to state the candidate's political party affiliation, that the candidate is independent of a party, or that the candidate choses to be listed as nonpartisan. Partisan hopefuls would have letters next to their names on general election ballots, while independent and nonpartisan candidates would get blank spaces. Straight-ticket voting — in which voters can choose a party's entire slate of candidates with a single ballot mark — wouldn't apply. But that's not how the proposal originally accomplished its goal. It would've required school board candidates to run in partisan primary elections until House lawmakers stripped that out and resurrected their own pared-back language. The Senate seemed inclined to agree to the House's overhaul when it filed a concurrence April 1, but that was withdrawn April 10. Senators then voted to dissent. A conference committee, tasked with drawing up a compromise, met Monday — but on Tuesday, the dissent was rescinded and replaced with another concurrence. CONTACT US That motion sat on the Senate's calendar for two days. Byrne skipped it multiple times as lawmakers key to the vote were absent. Much of the opposition, particularly among Republicans, centered on federal employees. Sen. Eric Bassler feared the legislation would disqualify many of his constituents — his district hosts a U.S. Navy base — from running in partisan school board elections by implicating the federal Hatch Act. 'These are the exact people that this body should want to run for school board,' Bassler, R-Washington, said. 'These are engineers. These are scientists. These are experts in finance.' But the Hatch Act is 'already in play today,' Byrne said. He cited a January U.S. Office of Special Counsel opinion, which finds that an election labeled 'nonpartisan' becomes partisan if a single candidate is endorsed by or 'acts in concert' with a party. When Brown asked him how, however, he replied, 'I cannot tell you that.' He said the legislation may bring 'attention' to the Hatch Act so that 'maybe it will come into play now more often.' Indiana judicial staff could also be blocked from school board service under state rules. The proposal retains another partisan feature. A candidate claiming affiliation with a political party would have to meet Indiana's two-party rule: the candidate's most recent two primary votes must match the party sought to represent. If not, a county party chair's O.K. is required. That could block thousands of Hoosiers from running under specific party designations. A provision allowing for higher school board member pay remains. It nixes the current $2,000 maximum and instead ties compensation to 10% of starting teacher salaries. The state-mandated $40,000 salary floor would double school board pay to $4,000. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
