No one spoke Thursday during a Hobart School Board public hearing on the proposed sale of Ridge View Elementary, which closed in 2020 but has been leased by community groups in recent years.
The average of two appraisals on the school set the minimum bid price at $1.27 million, said board attorney William Longer. Bochnowski Appraisal Company and Vale Appraisal Group provided the two appraisals, he said.
The school, at 3333 W. Old Ridge Road, is in a residential neighborhood on the city’s west side.
The district is required to publish two notices announcing the school sale.
Superintendent Peggy Buffington said the school is no longer a viable option for the school district because of its age and difficulty in retrofitting it.
Built in 1955, the school would require an elevator and additional classrooms.
Money is the driving factor in the district, bolstering its resources with the sale.
Because of state-imposed property tax caps, tax increases for residential property owners are capped at 1% and businesses at 2%.
Buffington said the heavily residential city’s low assessed valuation and the sharing of revenue with multiple taxing units take most taxpayers to the cap, so new taxes don’t reach the schools.
Buffington said the district lost 89% of its property tax revenue to property tax caps last year.
She called the 2025 GOP property tax reform law “a second circuit breaker,” which could reduce its operating budget to nearly zero.
“The goal posts change all the time,” said Buffington on state laws. “These are not things that we have done. We’re playing by all the rules we’re supposed to but unfortunately, it’s putting us in a situation where there will be no operating revenue coming into our district at all.”
The district’s NIPSCO bill was nearly $2 million last year and Buffington expects an 18% increase. That expense comes from the operating fund.
The civil city and school city have different boundaries so the school district won’t see a tax boost from a proposed Amazon data center on 61st Avenue, if it gains final approval, because it doesn’t fall within the schools’ boundaries.
Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
