Survey: 75% say they’d vote for a renewed West Lafayette schools tax referendum
School board expected to decide Monday whether to put property tax measure on the November 2026 ballot. Plus, attorneys for Thomas Moss double down on demand that judge recuse herself.
A survey of 400 registered voters in the West Lafayette Community School Corp. boundaries suggests that three out of four voters would back renewing a property tax referendum if it’s on the November ballot, school board members were told Wednesday night.
In the phone survey, paid for by the district and done by the Morris Leatherman Co., 75.8% said they would be in favor of a property tax that would offset projected losses from the Senate Bill 1 property tax reforms approved by the General Assembly in 2025.
That was slightly less than the 78% in a similar survey in 2023 who said they likely would vote to renew a 37-cent property tax that year. In 2023, voters in the West Lafayette school district outperformed the survey, approving the referendum with just over 80% of the votes.
“This is higher than what we typically see,” Don Lifto, a consultant with marketing firm Morris Leatherman Co., said during a school board work session Wednesday evening. “I’d put this one in the good news category.”
School board members took the results of the survey as good news.
But they said they were mindful that a referendum in November would face potential headwinds not there in 2023 that could cut into support when Election Day rolls around. That includes presenting a referendum in general election – the last one was held during the lighter participation of a municipal election; on a ballot with a school races; with a beefier amount, now considered at 57.06 cents per $100 in assessed valuation; and with new wording demanded in state law that could be more confusing than it was last time around.
“I’m confident this is a community understands what’s at stake,” David Purpura, a school board member who co-chaired a citizen committee promoting the 2023 referendum question, said. “They have in the past. As long as we don’t mess up here.”
