[Jesse B]

Student defections have been a long time problem. So many MCAS students from my era list faith in the MCAS system when it came time to start a family of their own. The big common denominator was violence and student safety.

The problem for a long time in Michigan City is two-fold. The system catered to the troublemakers and didn't kick them out of school so they could continue to terrorize the students who did come to school and learn. The second issue was the constant barrage of low income housing that has been built in MC for years. You can look at every good housing development in MC and find low income housing right next door. This could be said for Edgewood, Village Green, Trail Creek and now out in the county across from the High School.

Most parents have given up on MC. No job growth in the area and no protection for their children. This city no matter what the Road Atlas says is a lot closer to Gary than it is to Valparaiso and Chesterton.

[Ang]

Social promotion is a problem too. I pulled my kids out of the MCAS for that very reason.
My son hit 6th grade and didn't adjust well. In elementary school he always got good grades, but he was too immature for middle school and didn't make the transition well. I begged the school to hold him back and repeat 6th grade. They refused citing social promotion as the reason....my child did not EARN the right to progress to 7th grade, but they sent him anyway. He failed that and was put in 8th grade. We moved between 8th and 9th grade, but it was too late for him and he never caught up and he dropped out in the 10th grade. I made him go to job corps and he ended up passing the GED exam at 17. He is very smart and I don't believe he failed school. School failed him.

And that is another reason why people pull their kids out the MCAS. Don't get me wrong, there are excellent teachers at the MCAS, but the system is flawed and until that gets fixed, people are going to continue to leave.

[taxthedeer]

Absentee voting begins today and the following two Fridays for the referendum at the Michigan City courthouse from 10AM to 4PM.

[Southsider2k12]

Clearing up some bad information out there...

#1- Indiana state law makes any tax referendum for the schools good for a max of 7 years. After that a new referendum has to be passed, or the funding dies.

#2- The classroom big screen HD TVs came from a teacher applied for, and written grant. MCAS did not pay for a dime of those televisions.

#3- What casinos fund through taxation is governed by the State of Indiana. MCAS has nothing to do with that, and neither does the City of MC. MCAS receives no funds directly from Blue Chip, and does not have the power to do so. Any changes have to go through the State.

#4- The Park system is paid for by taxes from the residents of the City of Michigan City. They don't get "free" stickers. They pay taxes for them. The only people who have to pay for stickers are people whose taxes are not going to the City of Michigan City. Also the City of Michigan City has no power or authority over the MCAS. They are two completely different and separate entities who have no taxation or revenue relationships. They also have no governance relationships. They are separated in theory to keep the school system independent of political influence, which is the same reason that the school board is supposed to be a non-partisan body.

#5- Yes the contracted work year for teachers is 185 days. The typical American employee by the time their vacation time, holidays, and weekends are subtracted works about is more like 240-250. Those numbers do not include the unpaid overtime that teachers don't get paid as exempt employees.

#6- Per student funding to the MCAS has dropped $353 per student, or about 5%. The biggest loss in funding for MCAS over the past five years or so isn't from the State of Indiana, and it isn't from the property tax fiasco. It is from the huge drop in the number of students in the MCAS over that time period. Last I saw we had lost about 700 students during that time, or about $4.2 million in funding. This referendum is due to bring in around $5.6 million annually.

#7- The free and reduced rate in MCAS is not 90%. System-wide it is more like 70%. There might be a single school that high.

#8 -Another thing worth pointing out is that the average CEO salary for a company with $100 million in annual revenue (or right about the size of the MCAS budget annually) is just under $800,000 annually. The fun part is that the salaries of Supers aren't disclosed the way that all other school system salaries are disclosed. Here are some numbers as of the end of 2011 that I found through the Courier Journal. BEW $145k + $200 mo for a car, Chesterton $128,900 + $5400 annually for retriement and 90 free sick days, LaPorte $133,334 + $700/ mo for car, Valpo $168k, Portage $122k +320 free sick days total, MVille, $136,721 + $12,500 annually for retirement. We are right in the middle of the pack for salaries in the area.

[Southsider2k12]

Another factoid worth adding. The MCAS fact about your property taxes being lower than the previously were after this is true. What isn't being said is the whole taxation story. With the property tax cap laws, a full percentage point increase in sales tax was also passed to fund the cuts in property taxes. So while people are paying less in property taxes, they are probably paying more overall because of the increases in sales taxes they are paying out instead. This hits a poor town like Michigan City harder, because most residents houses are cheap enough to where they didn't see a big return on the property tax cuts, or they rent. The poor do see the sales tax increase harder than the rich because they have to spend all of their money to survive. A good chunk of that is sales taxable, that they are now paying an extra 1.00 per $100.00. People with bigger incomes are able to save money, which doesn't see that extra sales tax hit.

[Southsider2k12]

Another explanatory post on the school system. This one is on the funding formula, and why it is the way it is in MCAS.

A word of caution about the funding formula. It isn't as simple as the dollar amount per student that people are talking about. The formula is a complex algorithm that takes into account many different factors that make up a particular school system. Some of the bigger ones are the poverty rates in the school district, and the ratio of special education students amongst the population. City having a high funding number means two things. #1 it means we live in a town with lots of poor people, and #2 it means we have a lot of special education students. The big reason we have high dollars is that we have a lot of students that we know as a socioeconomic group will come into the school system behind their peers, and we have a lot students that are not easy to educate. Think of it in the simplest terms. For your typical B/C student, they are fine with a regular teacher and a regular lesson plan. By state and federal law this subsection of students is due an education, at least until age 18, but there are all of these extra steps involved in their education process, which will not render the same test results as the average student with much less dollars required for their education. We have a very high number of these students. It isn't as easy as saying that $4000 (or whatever numbers) should educate a student because that is how surrounding towns, that don't face the same challenges face, are able to do it. Let's face it the average student in Valpo or Chesterton or New Prairie is easier and cheaper to educate. The other issue is something you see in this very discussion. White Flight is also a fact of life in Michigan City. The middle class is gone, they have moved on to green pastures, to follow the jobs that also left. Those students by average measure, are statistically easier to educate, in terms of resources. The demographics of MC have shifted radically even just in the 21 years since I graduated from Elston, let alone in the 30/40 or more years since many in this discussion have graduated. There is no need to speak in code about what Michigan City has become. That is obvious. It isn't the same place we all grew up in. For some that means to continue the White Flight. For others that means to stay and continue the fight. I will also say this much about school spending. The real problems happened long before our current administration took office. Spending has been curtailed, all you have to do is look at the budgets to understand that. Michael Harding's administration was a disaster to this school system that is still being undone. I'll never understand why the school board protected him for so long. The transformation since then has actually been pretty amazing. Even besides anecdotal evidence, all you have to do is look at the school standardized measures to see the recovery that has taken place since Harding took his destructive act to East Chicago. Our test scores have gone up a ridiculous amount since he left. Yes they are still below average, but they are moving up across the board. Our top students earned almost 2000 hours of college credit last year while at the HS. That is 2000 hours of college that City students won't have to pay for after leaving our halls. Those hours could be the difference between getting a college degree and not, which in terms of average earnings adds about a million dollars to a persons lifetime earnings, or about $25,000 average annually. Don't get me wrong, we have a long way to go as a system. I'll be the first to admit it. But it is intellectually dishonest to not look at where we have been before looking where we are at now.

[taxthedeer]

Why does the school system own 20 acres of wooded land at at the SW corner Karwick Rd. and Springland Ave. across from Potawatomie golf course/Krueger Middle School. It's valued at nearly $800,000.00 Couldn't this land be sold and developed?

http://beacon.schneidercorp.com/Applicatio...127400013000022

[taxthedeer]

Another 42 1/2 acres across from Krueger, worth nearly 1.5 million:

http://beacon.schneidercorp.com/Applicatio...126176001000022

14.5 acres next to that $450,000



http://beacon.schneidercorp.com/Applicatio...126251001000022

[ChickenCityRoller]

more shenanigans, lol. What a mess... How in the world can that property be worth THAT much? Is there gold in the ground? Check out this one right down the road, 17 acres "worth" 7M?
Yes, this is a parcel that in 2008 and before was valued at 160k and is now at over 7M with no improvements done to it.
I need to find some investements that return like this!

http://beacon.schneidercorp.com/Applicatio...127400018000022

[Southsider2k12]

more shenanigans, lol. What a mess... How in the world can that property be worth THAT much? Is there gold in the ground? Check out this one right down the road, 17 acres "worth" 7M?
Yes, this is a parcel that in 2008 and before was valued at 160k and is now at over 7M with no improvements done to it.
I need to find some investements that return like this!

http://beacon.schneidercorp.com/Applicatio...127400018000022

Note who it belongs to.

[ChickenCityRoller]

Note who it belongs to.

Oh, I saw that first thing. So what kind of value manipulation is going on here?

[Southsider2k12]

Oh, I saw that first thing. So what kind of value manipulation is going on here?

I'm not sure why it is needed though. That is what confuses me.

[taxthedeer]

Another 62 acres behind the high school.

http://beacon.schneidercorp.com/Applicatio...510400022000046

All this undeveloped land needs to be liquidated to pay down the MCAS debt.

[ChickenCityRoller]

I'm not sure why it is needed though. That is what confuses me.

First thing that comes to mind is equity.

[Southsider2k12]

Looks like it is time for another truth squad type post for the MCAS tax referendum. There is a poster circulating that claims the "opposition" is calling the tax a 47% increase, and that number is "false". Looking at it from a nuetral standpoint, this is a true claim, but a misleading claim, much like the claim that your property taxes will still be lower than the used to be, even if the referendum is passed. The tax rate, if the referendum passes would go up 47%. That part is 100% true. Why that is misleading is because most people do NOT pay the full tax rate. If you have your first home that you are paying property taxes on, you receive certain exemptions, which means you do not pay the full possible amount of taxes. The reality is that unless you are talking about second home, rental property, or some sort of situation putting a second, or more, home in your name, you won't see this as a 47% tax in increase. The actual number will be much less for anyone who has a median home price or less. The higher the value of your home, the higher the effect increase will be.

As I eluded to earlier, it reminds me of the pro-referedum PAC's claim that your property taxes would still be lower than previous years if this passes. That part is 100% true. Why it is misleading is because we don't only pay property taxes. As a part of the 1/2/3 tax caps relief plan, the State of Indiana increased the sales tax rate one full percentage point to make up for it. So while if you just isolate out property taxes, your burden is lower, the reality is as a low income town, most of Michigan City has a higher overall tax burden because they are being hit much harder by the sales tax increase. A great example is buying a car. If you were to pay $20,000 for a car, previously you would have been hit with a $1200 sales tax bill. Now it is $1400. That is a $200 increase due to these very rules. Sales tax applies to all purchases made not involving things like food.

With these things in mind, we are now just over a week from the referendum. Are there questions that people still have on this referendum? If there are please feel free to post them. If you would rather ask questions in private, please send a private message to the page, and I will do my best to post an answer to them with both sides of the story.

[Southsider2k12]

My answer to what benefits would MCAS see from this referendum being successful.

In that case, I would say it benefits the school system by not forcing major cuts and closing across the board. Between the cuts from the state level, the extra dollars paid in interest to acquire Tax Anticipation Notes because of the property tax disaster, and then the loss of students from the school system, the MCAS has lost a LOT of money in their budget. They have pretty much come to the crossroads where they either have to make some really big cuts, or they have to find new revenue. Being fully honest, I don't expect to see new "benefits" with a tax hike. But that comes with a caveat. IF cuts are forced, the gains we have seen over the last 3-4 years, I believe, will be lost, and then it will probably be worse. I'm a numbers guy. I predicted this exact day happening years ago when I ran for school board. No one listened. BUT, what I do recognize is the group we have running school system now is in the middle of a major turnaround of our school system. The resources they have today, not only are they using them more wisely, but they are getting results with them. Pick a measuring stick to judge the school system by. Since Michael Harding left the MCAS, test scores are up over 30%, or about 15 full percentage points. High school students went from earning about 550 credit hours for college while still in high school in 2012 (last in the DAC) to earning 1897 credit hours (first of all DAC schools). Our overall graduation rate is up about 10% or 7 full percentage points since Harding left. Those numbers show you that our worst students are getting better, our overall population is pushing forward, and even our best students are moving higher. Those are the sorts of gains that are at risk, again, in my opinion. Cuts would mean revenues for things specifically like the Advanced Placement programs which led to 1900ish college credit hours would be at risk. It would put athletics at risk. It would put the new freshmen programs at risk. It would lead to teacher layoffs, as well as buildings (plural on purpose, because I can't see all of the necessary cuts happening with only one school closing) being closed. The dollars we are talking about here are to maintain the status quo. Again, City isn't the only school system in this bind. People always talk about Chesterton, well guess what.. the people of Chesterton approved a 22 cent property tax increase for their schools.

[taxthedeer]

I was in Mishawaka on Sunday. Residents there have many VOTE NO signs posted in their yards in protest of their referendum. There are a lot of blue and white signs signs scattered about in our district but there are much more residents that do not have signs.

I expect to see the same results in this referendum as in the 2009 Career and Tech Center referendum. Where would we be if that had passed?

[Southsider2k12]

I was in Mishawaka on Sunday. Residents there have many VOTE NO signs posted in their yards in protest of their referendum. There are a lot of blue and white signs signs scattered about in our district but there are much more residents that do not have signs.

I expect to see the same results in this referendum as in the 2009 Career and Tech Center referendum. Where would we be if that had passed?

I don't. There is one big difference between then and now. Leadership. This administration is actually out in the community connecting with every from the preschoolers all of the way up to the top leadership in this town. Harding was a disaster and an arrogant joke. Watkins is a real leader here. The referendum might not win, but it won't go down 70-30. It will at least be very close.

[Southsider2k12]

Today is the day.

[Southsider2k12]

With the MCAS about to go into cost cutting mode, I wonder if they could consider something like this?

http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/mishawaka-s...uz/-/index.html

Mishawaka schools cutting employee hours

Mishawaka School administrators are cutting back on the hours of some employees.

Superintendent Dr. Terry Barker says it's all because of the Affordable Care Act. Under the law, people who work 30 hours or more a week are full-time, and their employers have to give them health insurance.

Barker says this mandate would cost the district $3.5 million annually. He says it's something they can't afford. To save money, employees working 30 hours a week will go down to about 28 hours. It's a move that will affect about 350 people, including classroom aids and clerical workers.

"The whole impact of the Affordable Care Act unfortunately is something that ties our hands and puts us in a bind because it's an unfunded mandate. Quite honestly, it's one more unfunded mandate for schools, small businesses, for anybody employing 50 people or more," Barker said.

The change takes effect December 1. All 350 employees have been notified. WSBT asked Dr. Barker how these cuts in employee hours will affect Mishawaka schools. He says this change shouldn't affect the classroom, but they may need to adjust some schedules.