South Madison board approves contract deals, homestead-credit allocation and textbook adoptions; accepts 88 nonresident students

The South Madison Community School Corporation Board of Trustees voted to approve a package of administrative and instructional items at its meeting, including three vendor contracts, a district plan to allocate supplemental homestead-credit losses under state law, and multiple textbook adoptions. The board also approved acceptance of 88 new nonresident student applications.

Mr. McFarland, who presented the homestead-credit proposal, said the state’s change under Senate Bill 1 allows districts "upon an election to proportionally allocate the losses from those homestead credits... between the debt service and the operations fund." He told trustees the district will submit a notice to the Department of Local Government Finance and expects to allocate relevant property-tax payments received in June and/or December 2026, characterizing the arrangement as a one-year grace period and noting the submission is due by May 15.

In a separate vote the board approved three contracts brought forward by administration: WillSub (substitute staffing services), T‑Mobile (mobile hotspots for athletic fields) and McGraw Hill (curriculum materials). A trustee raised a question about an apparent "$10,000,000" figure that appears in a grant title; that speaker said on the record that the number is part of the title rather than the contract price. Trustees approved the contracts by voice/roll-call votes.

On enrollment, Mr. Kreuer told the board the administration was recommending acceptance of 88 new nonresident students (and 12 continuing nonresident students) where space is available. He reported the district’s total on‑record enrollment number as 612. Trustees moved, seconded and approved the acceptances.

Dr. Miller reviewed federal and state grant awards for the district. He said the Title I allocation is about $375,000 and that a special‑education behavioral grant was about $85,000. On Title II funding the presenter said the amount "is closer to 1" on the record; the precise figure was not specified in the discussion.

Trustees also approved textbook adoptions presented by administration: the board accepted a pre‑K reading adoption as presented by Dr. Miller and approved a secondary textbook adoption recommended by Mr. Greer on behalf of the HMS administration and English-learner services, noting the secondary materials align with the Indiana Department of Education’s approved list of curriculum materials.

All actions on the agenda were moved, seconded and recorded as approved in the meeting’s roll calls. The meeting concluded with routine announcements and adjournment.