Brownsburg Schools Avoid Tax Referendum After Agreement Designed to Protect Homeowners and Property Tax Caps

So, most of you know this, but to reset. Look, one of the reasons I do things the way I do is to send a message to people, especially as it relates to government entities, people in the government, which is they need to be held accountable, and the government is going to take from you as much as they think they can get away with. And that’s true at all levels. Government is going to take as much from you as they think they can get away with. Local level, state level, federal level. It’s what they do.

Brownsburg School System Reaches Deal to Avoid New Property Tax Referendum

Why is Braun suspending these gas taxes? Not because he’s admitting to you the gas tax is bad. He’s suspended these gas taxes because people are outraged at the price of gas. If Braun really thought the gas tax was unethical or wrong, he would have done it when gas was 268. The tax and the premise of the tax hasn’t changed. He suspended the gas tax now because gas prices are out of control and he recognized people are pissed off. This is the best example I can give you. The gas tax is equally as unethical, as immoral, as predatory, whether gas is 268 or 468. Government will take from you as much as they think they can get away with. And last night, well, the reason I do the things I do is to let people know when it comes to me, anything I can have some control over, we’re not going to let you get away with it. The place I live. I’m going to make your life hell. You’re going to earn every penny that you’re going to get, every penny you’re going to get. And for all the people who feigned this outrage about my style or my language or the nicknames or whatever else, they never voluntarily pay extra taxes when they’re saved money. You ever notice this? All these people who bitch about this thing didn’t pass or that thing didn’t pass, or this thing isn’t done, or that, anybody ever voluntarily pay more taxes? Anyone? No they don’t. It’s virtue signaling. It’s grandstanding. They have the opportunity to do, to pay more, and they don’t. But I do the things I do to send a message to people. You will not get away with it in the place where I live. And to the extent, whether it’s state or whatever, obviously I don’t have the ability single handedly to affect what’s going on in our state, but to let people know you’re going to earn every single second of it when you pull BS on the taxpayers. And so last night, the Brownsburg school system, instead of seeking a school referendum, came to an agreement with the town of Brownsburg, and they’re coming to an agreement with the township governments that make up the town of Brownsburg to guarantee no school referendum in exchange for a dollar amount from these entities that would be a fraction of what they would ask for the taxpayers in terms of tax increases. So what I’m saying is they had to make a decision on what they call an operating referendum that’s paying employees. There are two types of referendums. There are capital referendums which are buildings, and then there are operating referendums which are people. And the Brownsburg school system made a decision late last year because of how the referendum went ten years ago, not that it just got beat, that it got defeated, but how we beat the hell out of those people for six months up one side of town and back down the other. Not literally. Politically. And we said, not only are we going to beat this referendum, but we are going to beat you people into the dust so that the people who vote against us, they will hate you. They will know exactly what you are and what you’re trying to do to them. And we got called all sorts of names and this and that, and that doesn’t bother me. That doesn’t bother me at all. And we did that to send a message. And we stay on these people, and we go to the school board meetings and we talk about these things, and we fight on stuff to let them know we’re here. We are here and we are watching you, and we’re going to be up your ass, and we are going to hold you accountable on everything you do. And if you try to do stuff, we’re going to make your life a living hell. It’s 50/50 you’d even get the thing passed. And is the passage really worth what you’re going to have to go through?

Critics Argue Indiana Governments Will Always Take as Much Tax Revenue as Possible

And the school system, to their credit, one of the few school systems I’ve ever seen do this, was like, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. Dealing with Rob and his merry band of misfits ain’t worth whatever money we might get. And it’s 50/50 we ain’t going to get it anyway. And so what they did, to their credit, is last fall they said, look, we are losing money based on the budgets that we’ve had. Now, my view, of course, is they can always make it work with less money. You know me, I believe we should starve the government. It’s just like the government is having. Our governments are the equivalent of the people on the My 600-lb Life show. Our governments are the equivalent of the morbidly obese people on the My 600-lb Life show. You can’t. You got to suck them dry. You got to bleed them dry. You gotta starve them. There is so much money in the government. And the idea that these people say they can’t make it work is gross. I’m not a person who believes the schools deserve more money. I believe they deserve less. But the reality is in the confines of the system set up by the state, approved by the state. And by the way, this is the hypocrisy of our state Republicans. Oh, we got to fix property taxes. Oh, yeah. People are paying too much in property taxes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, this is ridiculous. And then they deliberately set up the system, the referendums, which they know are rigged in favor of the school systems, because the school systems can use government money to pass them. They know the school systems can utilize political action committees, get people who will benefit from these referendums to donate, and the people have to spend their own money to stop the referendums.

Indiana School Referendum System Faces Growing Backlash From Taxpayers

When we beat the one in 15, we got outspent 100 to 3. What do you think the odds are in any other place if you get outspent 100 to 3 that you’re going to have any chance? So it’s the hypocrisy of the legislature too. On one hand, say, oh yeah, these property taxes are out of control. Oh yeah. Somebody’s got to do something about that. Oh yeah. Yeah, we better fix this. And then they have this mechanism in place, which is rigged in favor of the school systems to be able to go raise people’s taxes. So the school system last fall reached out, to their credit. And look, this is something that nobody wants to admit. Everybody wants to badmouth me, but everybody knows when you get right down to it, nobody knows property taxes like me. Nobody cut more property taxes than me. Nobody understands this better than me. And you can say this makes me a total weirdo, but I spent four years of my life dedicated to this because I believe the thing is so immoral. I believe the thing is so unethical. You own your house, your money bought that house, and yet the government holds a forever lien on your house for something they had nothing to do with. That’s wrong. And I said, in my little corner of the universe, I’m going to do everything I can to try to influence others. And I’ll lead by example in cutting people’s property tax rates and defeating these school referendums and keeping people secure in their homes. I’ll do everything I can to do that. That’s what I feel like I can offer back to people. And people always say, well, you’re kind of obsessed with this. Yeah, yeah, I am, because that’s my house, I pay, I pay, the government didn’t pay for it. The school system doesn’t write me a monthly check to subsidize my mortgage. The town of Brownsburg doesn’t write me a monthly check to subsidize my mortgage. That’s my house. And so knowing that nobody sees government the way I do, nobody sees property taxes in the system the way I do, they reached out. The school system did. Like I couldn’t believe it. And they reached out and they said, hey, we’d like to talk to you about ways that we can avoid a school referendum. And we met back in November. It was a very productive meeting for about an hour. And we walked through a couple of different opportunities that existed if the school really desired to not have a referendum of what they could and should do to avoid that. And I told them, I said, I will do everything in my power if you walk down this path, even though I don’t think you need that money, even though I don’t want you to have that money. But I just think the other entities will blow it as bad as you guys do to ensure that this policy is supported and works. And the school, to their credit, spent six months herding cats, getting three government entities, the town and the townships to buy into this. And they didn’t have to do that. Most school systems wouldn’t have, but they did. And last night, the big part of it, which is the town did their part to pass this agreement with the school system, offering them money out of the tax increment finance district. Look, I could spend a whole show talking about the nuances of this and how it all works. Maybe someday we’ll just have boring local government 101 for a whole show. You guys seem to like when we do that. But they made a deal and said, we will supply you a fraction of what you would get in a school referendum for a short period of time to ensure that there is no school referendum and our taxpayers stay inside of the tax caps. That’s good government. That’s everyone working together because everyone stated, we don’t want a referendum. Everybody agreed. We don’t want this to happen. Let’s figure out a way to make it happen. And all it involved was a little work. And look, I’m not under any delusion that the school system likes me. Those people would light me on fire if they could get away with it. Nobody’s been a bigger pain in the ass and cost those people more money than me. I’m at 150 million now with what happened yesterday. But it’s worth it. Why? Because the school acknowledged we can make it work. We’ll figure out a way. They believe, and there are some things that are not their fault that happened at the state related to school funding formula that are going to get fixed. And to their credit, they said, if this gets fixed, we have the problem solved permanently. We need a couple of years to make sure this gets fixed. And then we’re out.

Brownsburg Agreement Highlighted as Alternative to Constant Tax Increases and Referendums

And even though I don’t want them to have that money, on the other side of the equation, it takes two people to work together. I said, that sounds like a pretty good deal for everyone. Let’s do it and let’s work together. It involved just a little bit of creativity and a lot of desire to protect the taxpayers. That’s it. A little bit of creativity and a lot of desire to protect the taxpayers. And the Brownsburg school system and the government entities that worked with them deserve credit for that. There’s nothing unique about Brownsburg. Every school system could do this. Every school system could do this. We make this huge mistake, like when school systems go, well, we lost X amount of dollars because of Senate Bill one. Or if you go back to 2010, we lost X amount of dollars because of property taxes. No you didn’t. It wasn’t yours to begin with. It was mine. It was Jason’s. It was the people of those communities. That was their money. You had no right to it. You took it from them. And the people through the property tax cap said enough is enough. We’re not doing this anymore. Our homes are not your personal piggy banks. And one of the major mistakes that the legislature made when they did the tax caps is they allowed for these school referendums. Now, if you go back and you watch the discussions, 2007, 2008, the referendum was intended for unforeseen emergencies. Some catastrophic thing happens, and then you give the community a say on whether they want to address it or not. And of course, the schools, because they believe they’re entitled to as much of your stuff as they desire, from the word go, bastardized that and started using it for everything under the sun. Football fields, sinks, science labs. Oh, we want a Videotron. No, we want to hire a bunch more people. It was never the intent of the school referendum. Ever. Ever. Now, I’ve told you about how this can be done. I’ve laid it out to you. I told these guys what to do in an hour and to their credit. Then they looked into it and said, you know what? He’s right. We can do that. And we will. And to their credit, they did it the same way in 2015, we told the school system, you don’t need a referendum. Here’s how you do this without the referendum. Oh no, we can’t do that. Nope nope nope nope. Yeah you can. I’m pretty sure I know it better than you do. I’m pretty sure I know government finance better than you do. Nope. We looked into it, and when the referendum failed, you know what happened? To their credit, they came back and said, yeah, you were right. We can do that.