Twin Lakes School Board holds special meetings on tax referendum

Two public meetings are schedule for April 17 and 23 by the Twin Lakes School Board as educational meetings regarding a tax referendum proposal. The meetings will be held at the White County United Way building 402 Tioga Rd. Door 3, beginning at 6:30 p.m. both nights.

School Board President Jeff Milligan, in a letter of explanation, wrote the board needs to address the problem of teachers’ salaries. He wrote the board would like to have the school district’s teacher salaries be competitive with other districts in the state. He mentioned there is a teacher shortage in Indiana and Twin Lakes has experienced a 20% turnover rate due to the shortage and the district’s “inability to pay the market rate for salary.”

“We are currently operating at a budget deficit, even though we anticipate saving $1 million from the elementary school consolidation. This means we are currently spending more money than we anticipate bringing in from current funding sources. This topic would be too complex to explain in a letter; however, we will go into detail at the public meetings,” he said in the letter.

The meetings are planned to “educate the public and answer questions about the tax referendum.”

He said the school board had held similar meetings last year regarding the decision to consolidate the elementary schools. 

“We would like to acknowledge that during the process, the board did not do as well as we could have in communicating our intentions and answering questions,” his letter states. “This left some people in our community with feelings of distrust and confusion. We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for our mistakes. We are determined to not make those same mistakes in the future.”