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Indiana bills could cut Northwest Allen County Schools property revenue and reopen partisan school-board races, board told
Summary
Board members received an update on multiple Indiana General Assembly bills — including a property-tax relief package that would reduce Northwest Allen County Schools’ property tax revenue and a stalled bill to permit partisan school-board elections — and learned that a possible operating referendum amendment is pending.
Board member Ms. Schlatter updated the Northwest Allen County Schools Board of School Trustees on several bills pending in the Indiana General Assembly that could affect school funding and local elections.
The update focused on four measures: Senate Bill 287 (partisan school-board elections), Senate Bill 1 (a broad property tax relief and revenue-sharing package that now includes charter-school revenue language from SB 518), House Bill 1001 (the state budget), and House Bill 1427 (fiscal and administrative provisions including language that could allow the district to proceed with an operating referendum).
The board was told that SB 287 "is the one that would give potential board members the option to declare a party or to declare independent or, before they run for school board," Ms. Schlatter said, and that its author had withdrawn a concurrence motion and filed a dissent, moving the bill into a conference negotiation and meaning it did not currently have votes to pass as written.
Ms. Schlatter said Senate Bill 1—now more than 350 pages after amendments—focuses on homestead tax credits and property-tax replacement credits and would shift some replacement revenue away from local units other than school corporations. She said language creating property-tax revenue sharing with charter schools (from SB 518) was folded into SB 1 and drew pushback. SB 1 passed third reading in the House on a party-line 65–29 vote and is awaiting further action.
On local impact, the board was told that Northwest Allen County Schools collected just over $33,000,000 in property taxes in 2025. Under the SB 1 proposal as described at the meeting, that figure could fall by about $886,000 the following year compared with the district’s current projection — and by roughly $2,000,000 compared with what the district would have collected under prior law. Ms. Schlatter said that because NACS’s tax base is mostly residential, the district could take a larger hit than districts with larger commercial tax bases.
House Bill 1001, the budget bill, received attention because the House Appropriations Committee did not fully fund the governor’s universal school-choice proposal. District presenters said that, assuming flat student growth, the committee’s actions would produce roughly a 3.1% increase in the district’s state tuition support in the next fiscal year and about a 2.1% increase the year after.
Board members also discussed House Bill 1427. Ms. Schlatter credited state Senator Brown with offering amendment language that could let Northwest Allen County Schools move forward with an operating referendum if the district passes an authorizing resolution before June 30; at the time of the update the board did not yet know whether that amendment had been approved.
Board members asked clarifying questions about what the projected state tuition-support increases include; staff replied that the reported 3.1% and 2.1% increases would be new money and did not include curricular-material allocations, though those appear in other state tuition-support run projections.
The board said staff will continue to monitor all bills during the remainder of the session and report back at the next meeting with any changes.
