BREMEN — The Bremen Community School Board talked “future debt” at their meeting on Wednesday, in the wake of the General Assembly’s SB 1 that addressed property taxes in the state.
The Indiana Assembly’s bill addressed property tax relief, and since schools are funded by property taxes, the trickle-down effect of which is a lessening of funds available for public education. Bremen Superintendent Jim White approached the board about how they would like to move forward, regarding necessary projects already on the board for the corporation.
Currently, the next project involves security with the move of the office to the front of the building and adding features to make the entrance to the school secure. Included in that project would be an office for the Bremen School Resource Officer, and also include upgrading of the FACS area to enable the offering of more culinary educational programming.
White told the board that the corporation could adopt a “tread water and see what happens” approach or keep moving forward by adopting one of two options: a general operations bond or a first mortgage approach.
White said that both have a five-and-a-half-year payoff, but the law, as written by the state assembly, is that paying off the debt early on a general operations bond would involve a year’s “time out” before another project could be funded.
White said that the first mortgage option would allow the school to fund the planned project fully at around $6.6 million and have some left over to address smaller projects. It would also not cause a rise in the current tax rate.
The school also has a need to address HVAC concerns, but the funding for such would be $8-10 million and could be addressed in two years.
The board voted to pursue the first mortgage option.
