Timing, decision right for school board (07/19/07)

School board member Jay Halstead couldn't have put it better.

"Timing is everything," he said, "and now is not the right time."

Faced with a statewide uproar over property taxes, the Jay School Board made the right call by deciding to put plans for a high school multipurpose facility/auxiliary gym back on the shelf.

While many board members still want to see the project happen, they know that now is not the time and property taxes aren't the answer.

Had the board chosen to go forward, there would have been some significant - perhaps insurmountable - hurdles.

The ease with which opponents to the project were able to get the requisite number of signatures for a remonstrance petition indicated that any dueling petition drive may have been hotly contested.

It also would have been divisive, something the board didn't want for the school corporation.

Then there was the matter of the Department of Local Government Finance, the entity in state government which has replaced what was formerly known as the board of tax commissioners and the state board of accounts.

Even if the project had won approval in a petition battle, it would have had to make it past the DLGF. And in the current political climate in Indianapolis, it's likely it would have been shot down.

Once upon a time, state approval would have been pretty much guaranteed. Not now.

Even the long-planned South Adams project, which is sorely needed and which won overwhelming backing from its school community, is no sure thing.

School officials there are asking for letters of support to take to the DLGF in hopes of getting the state's OK.

But the Daniels administration has been critical of school construction projects and the South Adams plans couldn't be coming at a worse time politically.

As Halstead noted, "Timing is everything." - J.R.[[In-content Ad]]