![SNAP HAPPY Recording on a GoPro for social media, senior Sam Mellon has recently started a weekly sports podcast. “[Senior] Brendan Feeney and I have been talking about doing a sports podcast forever. We love talking about sports and we just grabbed [senior] Will Hanas and went along with it,” Mellon said.](https://mhsnews.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/sam-892x1200.png)
In 2018, Munster High School broke through an $8 million debt. The financial success led to construction and renovation throughout the school. Now, recent budget cuts to the school on a state level are putting pressure on the community.
The budget cuts in question are a result of SB0001 (2025), a bill directed towards lowering property taxes for Indiana residents. In allowing Indiana residents the leisure of paying lower taxes, the bill is also limiting the money that is expected to go to schools annually.
“Schools could plan for increases in value by setting out budgets in the long run for five years and ten years; you could assume that the values would go up, so more money could come in. Now, that is capped at 1%,” principal Morgan Nolan said.
While there is no way of knowing how much money this will eventually cost the school, Nolan and other administrators are working on adjusting the budget for future years to ensure the school can continue to give students the best possible education.
“They say the worst year could be 2028, where we could decrease our revenue, and they estimate over 2 million… There are a lot of variables going to decrease our revenue significantly, but there are things that could bring it back up,” financial chief advisor William Melby said.
There are many administrators who are focused on planning the budget for the next six years. So far, MHS is not predicted to face any budget cuts severe enough to largely impact the school.
“Bill Melby, Dr. Hendrix, Dr. Heller, and the previous school boards did a really good job of setting the stage by getting us out of debt and keeping us out of debt moving forward,” Nolan said. “I don’t have major concerns that we’re going to be in a debt situation, but it really boils down to the needs, wants and desires of people versus how much money we really have.”
Nolan believes that although the budget cuts might add more pressure to ensuring the comfort of the school, students will not be greatly affected because the school will prioritize their education above all else.
“I don’t think you guys are going to feel any major effects of this,” Nolan said. “But money does make it to where we can do extra things.”
