EVANSVILLE — Weighty issues — issues with implications for years to come — confront EVSC school board candidates in November’s election.
Four of the seven school board positions will be on the Nov. 3 ballot, with incumbents Mike Duckworth, Chris Kiefer, Melissa Moore and David Hollingsworth seeking re-election. Only Kiefer in District 1 is unopposed. In District 2, Duckworth and Hollingsworth face challengers Lindsey Patterson and Ken Colbert. Although most school board members represent districts, they are all are elected countywide.
The at-large election, which five candidates seeking one board seat, is the marquee race. Incumbent Moore faces four challengers: Republican Steve Ary and Alan Goad, Andy Guarino and Brian Murphy. It is not necessary for any candidate to win a majority of votes to be declared the winner.
The candidates will have a lot to talk about on the campaign trail — like the number that dominated a recent school board discussion of EVSC’s proposed 2027 budget: $15.5 million.
That’s the estimated impact of property tax caps, also known as circuit breaker credits. According to Indianapolis-based Policy Analytics, LLC, that impact in 2027 for EVSC potentially could be $15.5 million.
It’s “revenue that is never collected,” said Carl Underwood, the school corporation’s chief financial officer. And while it helps taxpayers by saving them money, Underwood warned that it could hurt revenue collections for EVSC and other taxing entities next year and even more in years to come. That prospect would require that EVSC “maintain discipline on recurring commitments and evaluate operational efficiencies,” the budget says.
“Long-term planning must continue to align recurring operating costs with recurring resources,” the budget states.
It was a budget writer’s way of saying trouble lies ahead in the years to come.
Underwood noted that Senate Enrolled Act 1, a 2025 property tax overhaul that shifted some funding responsibilities to school districts, also has reduced revenues.
“I looked, and this is my 16th budget that I’ve presented,” Underwood told the school board. “And while over those years, we’ve had lots of challenges along the way, this property tax cap impact is going to be one for the ages.”
The $15.5 million estimate represents an increase in revenue losses that is “significant,” Underwood said, landing forcefully on the word.
“Just for a little context, this year in 2026, it is going to be about $11.8 million, $11.9 million,” he said. “Prior to that, for the ten previous, the 12 previous years prior to that, we had operated around $9 million to $10 million. And we were able to tighten our belts and work with that.”
Then Underwood dropped a jaw-dropping number and a forewarning on the school board.
Given anticipated increases in health insurance, property and casualty insurance, utilities and other operational necessities, he said, in fewer than 10 years EVSC’s property tax cap losses may grow to $25 million.
“That is not a sustainable dollar amount for any organization, certainly a school district that wants to provide excellent opportunities for kids,” he said. “That’s not something where we can cut and make that.
“I don’t think there’s any way you can cut your way to excellence. Something will have to — we’ll have to figure out a way to navigate through this. It’s a real number that’s going to happen.”
The big change came in 2008. That year, under then-Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’s administration, state lawmakers passed legislation that placed caps on property tax rates, therefore limiting how much local revenues flowed to school districts.
For residential taxpayers it was capped at 1% of the assessed value of their homes.
“For taxing entities — the school corporation, the library, the city and county — for their budgets, if the budgets that they set require an amount that’s over that threshold, those are the caps that are never passed along to those districts, so they do not receive those monies,” Underwood told the school board.
After 2008, the state took over operational funding for schools through the funding formula currently used, which is largely based on enrollment. School districts still levy property taxes for things like debt service, capital projects and transportation.
Pointing ahead again, Underwood told the school board that Senate Enrolled Act 1 “has really kicked everything into overdrive.”
“We’ve kind of navigated in that $10 million (property tax cap impact) range and, through efficiencies, we’ve been able to make that work for us,” he said. “But going from $10 million to $25 million, that’s a whole different story.”
Will EVSC get weapons detection technology?
Whoever wins November’s school board races will take office on Jan. 1. Sometime by the end of August, EVSC believes, it will receive the results of an audit of security measures in schools for which it paid a Cleveland, Ohio-based consultant $215,750.
The school board engaged National School Safety and Security Services to audit school security measures after a string of threat incidents at schools early in the 2025-26 session, including one in which a sixth-grade student was reportedly caught trying to sell an unloaded handgun at Delaware Elementary School.
The issue has become a flashpoint, with some parents and Vanderburgh County Republican Party Chairman Kyhle Moers saying the fix is in — against weapons detection technology.
Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, has made several arguments mitigating against weapons detection technology, telling the school board in February that it isn’t guaranteed to work and can cause false alarms for items that aren’t weapons.
At the same time, other area school districts that do use weapons detection systems have characterized them as a success and a useful supplement to their other safety controls. That includes Warrick County School Corporation, which spent nearly $300,000 to install weapons detection at its three high schools and Warrick Pathways and Career Center after experiencing its own threat incidents.
GOP Chairman Moers told the Courier & Press in June that EVSC’s decision to spend $215,750 on an audit of security measures in schools instead of weapons detection was “insane.”
“Not to mention the absolute irony of it all is that our school corporations across the state are crying about how much money they’re losing from SEA 1 (Senate Enrolled Act 1), and you’re going to go blow money frivolously on a study like that, that’s going to come back and just give you the confirmation bias that you want of, ‘No, we don’t need to do anything,'” said Moers, the husband of Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers.
But EVSC characterizes the safety audit as a necessary top-to-bottom assessment of safety measures already in place in its 40 schools.
“It is a very comprehensive and thorough assessment of (Trump’s) findings, recommendations,” corporation spokesman Jason Woebkenberg said Tuesday.
EVSC expects to incur serious costs putting at least some of the recommendations of Trump’s group into action after Trump issues the report. During its May 4 meeting, the school board agreed to issue general obligation bonds in an amount not to exceed $15 million.
“These bond proceeds are designated for safety and security upgrades across the district,” Underwood told the school board that night.
But Underwood and Woebkenberg have said they won’t know how much of the bond amount will go to safety and security upgrades to schools until the school board assesses whatever report is produced by National School Safety and Security Services.
Statewide devices ban just started
The new school year began Aug. 10 with Indiana’s tough new bell-to-bell ban on cellphones in schools in place.
School board members have already helped shape EVSC’s response by agreeing to pay Goleta, California-based ParentSquare for its family messaging platform to enable two-way communication between middle and high school students and their parents using school-issued student devices.
It is intended as a way to mitigate the effects of the statewide bell-to-bell ban, which EVSC officials had not supported before it passed by lopsided margins in both houses of the Indiana General Assembly in February. The new statute bans wireless communication devices for the entire school day, not just classroom time.
EVSC administration and school board members could have told parents to call their child’s school office if they needed to get a message to them, but they said ParentSquare’s platform instead puts parents at ease about their ability to contact their children.
Teachers told the Courier & Press over the summer that they anticipated fierce resistance to the ban from parents. School board member Chris Kiefer noted during a public meeting in June that he had heard people say they don’t intend to comply with the ban. Kiefer asked EVSC attorney Pat Shoulders what would happen if the school corporation “decided to not follow the state law.”
But one high school teacher told the Courier & Press on Wednesday that they haven’t yet seen strong resistance to the tougher new law from students.
“I’m kind of shocked by how well all the students are dealing with the new electronics rule,” the teacher said by email. “My school started enforcing at 7:30 a.m. on Day 1. I personally haven’t had one student violate the rule, well and get caught :)!
“Literally, I’m shocked. It has made such a huge positive difference! I’ve noticed a big difference, especially without having their headphones! That was more of a challenge than the actual phones. I’m loving it.”
Principals last week sent out numbers of referrals for technology issues, the teacher wrote, “and they were actually way lower than I anticipated.”
Woebkenberg, who has consistently said students would obey the new law, also said this week that it has gone well. The EVSC spokesman mentioned a state law passed in 2024 banning portable wireless devices from being used during instructional time. Under that statute, students were allowed to use their devices during passing periods and cafeteria time.
“I just spoke to a principal this (Tuesday) morning who talked about what a nice change it’s been, you know, to take it to the next level from what we had in place the last two years, how it’s gone well and students have done a nice job with it,” Woebkenberg said.
The ParentSquare technology likely will be in place by the end of this month, the EVSC spokesman said.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Jaw-dropping number, other issues await EVSC school board candidates
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press | USA TODAY Network
