Good evening.

Um I call to order the education committee meeting.

I is Thursday or Tuesday, November 4th, 2025, and we're in the public assembly room.

Um I would like to start with my introduction of my colleagues, starting in the front.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Derek Cahill, District 23.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Dr.

Carlos Perkins, District 6.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you, Madam Chair Keith Graves, District 9.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Dan Boots, Washington Lawrence Townships, District 3.

Thank you.

And I am Jessica McCormick, District 16 on the West Side.

We have one item on our agenda tonight.

We have a presentation from Michael O'Connor from the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, the ILEA.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I hope I don't disappoint since I'm the only item on the agenda.

It's a lot of pressure.

Thank you very much.

My name is Michael O'Connor.

I've been retained by the mayor's office to project manage the work done by the ILEA.

The ILEA was created by House Enrolled Act 1515 was House Bill 1515.

In the voluminous packet of information, I presented a copy of House Enrolled Act 1515 for the record.

Should you want to access it electronically?

But as I said, the uh the ILEA was uh created by the Indiana General Assembly in the last legislative session uh this year, this spring.

Um and I won't I won't bore you with the legislative reading.

The the intent of the legislature, and there's I know counselor boots is well aware there is no such thing as legislative intent in Indiana law, but the the desire of of the speaker and the and the folks who supported the bill and bringing people together was to create um a better working relationship between the charter sector uh uh of education, the public charter school sector in Indianapolis and the traditional public school sector at IPS and urging a group of appointees, and I'll go through them in greater detail to get together and make some recommendations towards that end.

So the legislation created uh a panel, uh Indiana uh local uh uh education alliance, and then made the mayor or his designee the chair and the superintendent as part of that, uh, and and the mayor is sort of uh designated her as her as his vice chair for that group.

So IPS has appointees.

Uh as I said, Superintendent uh Dr.

Alicia Johnson is uh the ad hoc she's serving, been at every meeting and acts as the the vice chair of the group.

Tina Algren is uh is a superintendent appointee.

Tina is a math teacher at uh Harshman Middle School.

Andrew Neal is a uh superintendent appointee, but the the slot created uh that he fills um is for a charter school innovation network charter school parent to serve on the ILEA.

So Andrew Neal is a pastor uh or a minister, he's the CEO of Outreach, a youth homeless mission, homelessness mission on the near east side of Indianapolis.

Barato Britt is the appointee of the IPS board president, and he is the executive director of the Edna Martin Edna Martin Christian Center, pardon me.

And so those are the four IPS appointees to the ILEA.

The mayor, uh, as I said, is designated as the chair.

He could have designated someone to serve in that role either on his staff, uh, but he has chosen to uh fill that slot himself.

He also has been at all the meetings.

Um Angela Smith Jones, former Deputy Mayor, uh, for Mayor Hogsett, currently a vice president of Indiana University, is one of the mayoral appointees.

Counselor Maggie Lewis, you all know Councillor Lewis, she's the majority leader here, uh, serves on the committee.

Um Toby McClamrock, uh, an attorney at Denton's former member of the Indianapolis City County Council, uh, serves as the mayor's designee in the uh Bart Peterson also, uh, a name maybe some of you recognize former mayor of the city of Indianapolis.

So those are the nine members of the ILEA.

As I said, there are particularly on the IPS board.

The the board president had one slot, Borado Britt fills that.

The superintendent had two sort of at large slots to fill.

She put herself in one, Tina Algren in the other, and then a spot specifically designated to it for a parent of students in an innovation network school.

At the June meeting, it was organizational in nature, again, running through what House Enrolled Act 1515 detailed in both a series of shalls by designated by SHAWS that the organization should consider.

There are some Mays within that process, but sort of the work laid out in the in the legislation for the ILEA.

In July, there was a deep dive into school finance.

I would call it School Finance 101, although it's an ever evolving.

You guys understand, having just gone through the budget, there are significant changes because of state law, but school finance 101, a lot of uh time spent on understanding how the referendum or referenda process works in Indiana, where you've got both capital referendums that take place, referenda take place, sorry, I should get my plurals and singulars correct, um, that are typically 20-year in nature, and then in 2008, um the state law changed and created an opportunity day.

They locked in Froes operating fund levels for public school systems at the 2008 level and then allow school systems to uh create a referenda to increase those operating costs uh if approved by the voters.

Um so it's it's an interesting process.

Folks who haven't been immersed in uh school finance sometimes don't understand how operating revenues can then start dipping over a period of time, but that's when that actual referenda starts to tail off.

In IPS's instance, that tails off at the end of 2026.

And so in 2027, and there's some subtleties to this, but roughly it's easy to say that in 27 IPS loses about 40 million dollars if they don't go forward with another referendum on an annual basis and operating revenue.

Um some discussion, uh again, as I said, things you guys have wrestled with, but in a different way, the impact on of Senate Enrolled Act one on both IPS and charter school finances, um, and and a lot of detail again and the volume of things I've sent you on how finances work, the finance across the board City Enrolled Act One, called for property tax sharing with charter schools that are present in the district of the schools that is raised that are raising or using property taxes for operating funds.