I try hard to get the numbers right when writing about public money in any context—and particularly when it comes to public school finances.

Wednesday night’s Hamilton Southeastern School Board meeting generated a lot of news, and in covering it I wrote one sentence that requires a correction. I want the record to be straight.

Here is the sentence from the original story, written the same night as the meeting:

“CFO Tim Brown received board approval for a one-time $6.7 million fund transfer, permitted for one year only by state lawmakers, to alleviate the initial impact of the new Homestead Credit for property taxpayers.”

CFO Brown did cite a $6.7 million figure to the board, but that number reflects the impact of what is described as the property tax “circuit breaker”—including the effect of the up-to-$300 credit on property taxes enacted by state lawmakers. The actual transfer, made as a one-time opportunity under state law, was $2.6 million from the debt service fund to the operations fund. That move is allowed in 2026 only.

In other words, the $6.7 million describes the financial pressure the district faces, while the $2.6 million is the amount actually moved between funds to help absorb it.

Under Indiana law, a school district’s operations fund pays for such things as capital projects, transportation costs, school bus replacement and certain overhead expenditures. The debt service fund, by contrast, is used to repay borrowing such as bonds—so shifting money out of it and into operations is the kind of step the legislature permitted only for this one year.

I attempted to summarize a fairly complex situation in a single sentence and did not tell the whole story. Now you have it.