The Indian River School District Board of Education voted unanimously Monday, March 31, to hold a second referendum seeking to raise property taxes to help counteract budget shortfalls for the coming year.
The referendum for current expense funding will be held June 5.
School board members heard concerns at Monday’s sparsely attended special meeting from several staff members and parents. The meeting was scheduled following the March 20 referendum vote to discuss the district’s next steps. Two dates for a second referendum were discussed, the second being in the fall.
“We need to decide tonight,” Superintendent of Schools Jay Owens told the board. Owens added that the 10,265 votes cast on March 20 represented the third highest total ever in a district referendum.
“I think the momentum is there to go again in June,” IRSD Director of Business and Finance Tammy Smith told the board, adding that the vote totals did not, in her opinion, reflect “a resounding no” from the voters.
Board Member Jerry Peden said “we can’t make the mistake to let it fail again,” adding that holding a second referendum in the fall “gives us more time for the planning.”
Peden also said he felt that the timing of the March vote, coming just weeks after homeowners began to see Sussex County reassessment results, “added confusion” for voters who were unsure what the reassessment would mean for their tax bills overall.
Board Member Kimberly Taylor said she believes the district “needs time to collaborate and plan” for a second referendum.
“We have to be in lock-step with the community” in order for a referendum to pass, Board Member Mark Steele said.
He agreed with comments from Millsboro resident Gregg Lindner, who suggested that the district would have more success getting support for its referendums if it held them more regularly and asked for smaller tax increases each time.
Lindner, who said he was a member of school boards in Chester and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania before moving to Millsboro, said “half of the people came here after the last operational referendum,” referring to drastic growth in many Sussex County communities in recent years, to which Taylor nodded in agreement.
“I think it would be very helpful to those of us who came from other states and have not dealt with this type of situation before to be able to take it in bite-sized pieces” rather than larger but less-frequent increases, Lindner said.
“I’m really concerned about my co-workers,” Blair Catlin-Brown, Southern Delaware School of the Arts social worker, told the board. Catlin-Brown added that she is “really concerned about the anxiety that’s being spread” through the school buildings, including students.
“Staff morale…I don’t really know if it could get lower,” she said. “I’m really concerned with the lack of transparency when it comes to exactly why some of the moves are happening,” Catlin Brown said as some staff members had begun been receiving word that either their contract was not renewed or they were being moved to another school.
“Darkness is harder to take than truth,” Catlin Brown said. “The truth is what we’re all seeking.” In the days since the referendum vote, she said, “we are just left confused and wondering.”
District Director of Human Resources Celeste Bunting said “every decision is very difficult” and that meetings are being scheduled with employees whose jobs are affected by the cutbacks made necessary by the referendum failure. Officials were scheduled to meet with displaced teachers April 4 and with non-tenured teachers whose positions are being eliminated for the next school year the following week.
Jacob Buchler said he is a tenured teacher who is being “displaced,” from his current position and asked to move to a different school. He said he has been outspoken in the past about such issues as mask mandates, vaccine mandates and “overspending” in the district.
“I knew the spending was unsustainable before it happened,” Buchler said. He said he was part of a meeting in the summer of 2022 between district employees and administration where cost-cutting ideas were shared. “But nothing came of it,” he said.
“We just witnessed continued hiring and spending,” Buchler continued.
Jason Pilgrim, secretary of the Indian River Education Association, the district’s teacher union, said Monday he was speaking only as an 11-year employee of the school district.
“It’s a tough time,” for school district employees as teachers and paraprofessionals prepare for possible displacement, Pilgrim said.
“We need some clear answers,” he said. “I’m just asking for wisdom in this situation. It’s not an easy time for anybody.”
The comments from the public were followed by a presentation by Smith and Bunting with lists of positions to be affected by districtwide cutbacks. The presentation also laid out some of the potential impacts to students if a second referendum fails, including the elimination of athletic programs, academic program and career-technical education programs.
The presentation also addressed projections for fiscal year 2026, including:
• Uncertainty in future years due to state and federal funding and inflation; and
• Projected balances at the end of the current fiscal year indicating a deficit of $3 million for payroll and regular operating costs until tax collections are received.
The shortfall will be resolved by borrowing from the district’s curriculum reserve account, with funds to be repaid when October tax collections are received.
Peden and Taylor voted against the motion to hold another referendum on June 5, but both voted for the subsequent resolution on the June date. The measure passed 9-0, with Board Member Anita West Werner absent.
In other business, the board members voted unanimously to approve the hiring of a new principal for Southern Delaware School of the Arts, but did not name the new principal. As of Coastal Point press time, the name of the new SDSA principal had not been announced by the district.
