Meet Noblesville — a ~10,000-student school corporation in Hamilton County, Indiana. Their current $25M/year operating referendum expires at the end of this year; they're going for a renewal and expansion on Nov. 3. The ballot ask is $43M/year or 57¢ per $100 of assessed value. The choice on the ballot is stark: +$18M/year or -$25M/year. Everything else — the CFO's 4% raise, the "20% waste" vibe, the "you can't convince me" audit reads — is noise around that one decision.

Along the way: why Indiana calls its districts "corporations" (a 1959 Reorganization Act, opening the old Dillon–Cooley debate about whether local governments are actually public); Indiana's 2008 property-tax revolt and the 2010 constitutional 1%/2%/3% caps on residential, ag, and commercial property, backfilled by a one-penny sales tax hike; the 2025 SEA 1 reforms — a state homestead tax credit, referendums restricted to November general elections, and mandatory per-pupil sharing of referendum revenue with charter schools; why Noblesville feels the 1% residential cap hardest as a mostly-residential district where Noblesville Schools is the #1 employer (2,056 jobs vs. Hamilton County's 1,031); Carmel Clay's 18¢ ask that yields roughly the same absolute revenue as Noblesville's 57¢ because of a much richer property base; and a real, unforced error: A finding in the FY2023 State Board of Accounts audit — nine-figure overstatements and understatements of interbank transfers and clearing-fund activity — worth actually reading.

WORKS MENTIONED

- David I. Backer, As Public as Possible

- Bonnie Honig, Public Things (Fordham UP, 2017)

- David Schleicher, In a Bad State (Oxford, 2023)

- Gail Radford, The Rise of the Public Authority (U. Chicago, 2013)

- Jonathan Levy, The Real Economy (PUP, 2025)

NOBLESVILLE SOURCES

- Noblesville Schools: https://www.noblesvilleschools.org/

- Noblesville 2026 referendum page: https://www.noblesvilleschools.org/referendum

- Indiana State Board of Accounts — audit search (Noblesville Schools): https://gateway.ifionline.org/report_builder/

- SBOA main site: https://www.in.gov/sboa/

- Indiana Gateway (district financial reports): https://gateway.ifionline.org/

- Hamilton Southeast referendum coverage (WFYI): https://www.wfyi.org/

- Indianapolis Star, Hamilton County school-tax coverage: https://www.indystar.com/

INDIANA SCHOOL FINANCE POLICY

- Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, property tax caps: https://www.in.gov/dlgf/property-tax-caps/

- Indiana Constitution Art. 10 §1 (2010 caps amendment): https://iga.in.gov/laws/current/constitution/article-10

- Indiana SEA 1 (2025) property-tax reform: https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2025/bills/senate/1

- Indiana Department of Education, school finance: https://www.in.gov/doe/finance/

- Indiana school funding formula (basic + complexity grants): https://www.in.gov/doe/grants/school-financial-information/

- Americans for Prosperity Indiana: https://americansforprosperity.org/indiana/

CREDITS

Music: Carsie Blanton — https://carsieblanton.com

Artwork: Soumya Dhulekar — https://www.soumyadhulekar.com/

Request form: https://linktr.ee/budgetcommittee