PORTER TOWNSHIP | Even though Porter Township School Corporation beat the July deadline of a new law requiring a referendum process for its Boone Grove High School renovation project, it plans to test the waters of the process.

The estimated $34 million project to expand the school and add a middle school complex is set to go before the Department of Local Government Finance for approval, Superintendent Nick Brown told the School Board last week.

But the school district fears cuts by that body could harm the project and future projects that depend upon it. When the high school was built in the mid-1990s, the DLGF nixed classrooms that had to be added later, Brown said.

Instead, the district will hold a second public hearing on the project and let the referendum process play out. If 100 signatures on a petition requesting a referendum are not gathered, the project can proceed in its present form, Brown said. The district would not need to raise property tax rates, but could pay off a bond issue with current funding levels of its debt service fund, he said.

That would be the district's preferred course, Brown said. But if 100 signatures are gathered and a referendum is held, a yes vote also would move the project forward. But by voting yes, voters would be imply they were willing to pay property tax beyond the new cap of one percent of a residence's value. As a result, this outcome could cost taxpayers more, Brown said.

The last outcome would be a no vote on a referendum, which would kill the project and send the district back to the drawing board, Brown said.

The district has held many public meetings on the high school plans and gathered community support, Brown said. Thus, the district feels more confident letting the community, rather than Indianapolis, decide the project's fate, he said.

"We know what our needs are in Porter Township," he said.

The board plans to hold the hearing at its November meeting. If it goes to a referendum, the vote could be held by next May.