A bill allowing Ball State University to run Muncie Community Schools is headed to the full Senate for consideration. An amendment that would have put an end date onto the first state plan of its kind failed to receive enough support in committee Thursday.
Democratic minority members on the Senate Appropriations committee wanted to limit Ball State University’s running of Muncie schools to five years, ending in mid-2023.
Several senators say this is the first time any takeover plan has had an open-ended status.
But Republican Senator Liz Brown says the state stepped into Muncie for a reason.
"I would love to be able to put a sunset on it. I would love to be able to say that this will be done," Brown said. "But looking at the chronology in the Muncie school district, this cesspool didn't happen overnight and it's not going to be righted anytime soon."
That amendment failed on a party-line vote. Democrats also talked about an amendment – but didn’t bring it up for a vote – that would allow Muncie residents to vote by referendum to end the agreement in 2023. Muncie Democratic Senator Tim Lanane says he’d like to add that to the bill.
"I think if you're going to take the vote away from people right now you ought to be able to at least have a way by which the community could say we think it should be returned in the future."
The bill now goes to the full Senate.