🗓️ Election Day: Tuesday, November 3, 2026 — Vote NO on the operating referendum
Updates

What's changed

New pages, changes the district has made to its own numbers, and every correction we've made to ours. Newest first. Each entry has its own link.

· District page

The district added three videos to its referendum page. Its figures haven't changed.

Sometime between September 8 and September 24, Noblesville Schools added three videos to its Referendum 2026 page: a recording of Dr. Hile's information session, and two more in its “What Does the Referendum Pay For?” series, on school safety and on STEM and workforce development. We compared the page against our September 8 capture, and none of its wording or numbers changed.

That includes the headline: the page still says a $350,000 home would pay “approximately $1.88 more a month than they are paying currently.” On the district's own calculator, that home pays $1.05 a month more in 2027 and $15.05 more in 2034. The average across the eight years is $8.19. Where the $1.88 comes from →

· Correction

Correction: the referendum's history

Our fact-check said Noblesville's first operating referendum passed in 2010 and that the 2018 measure “replaced and increased it.” That skipped a step. The 2010 referendum was renewed in May 2016, and the 2018 measure replaced the 2016 one. The conclusion is unchanged: the claim that Noblesville has had a referendum for sixteen years is correct. The row now gives the full sequence and cites the Indiana DLGF's referendum history.

· New in the FAQ

“The board approved 38.5¢. Isn't the 54% made up?”

No. 54% compares the maximum rate the ballot authorizes, 57¢, with the 37¢ charged today. The 38.5¢ the board committed to covers 2027, one year out of eight. We've added the full answer to the FAQ, with the arithmetic and a credit to the board's resolution. Read the answer →

· New page

We checked what the candidates said at the forum

At the school board candidate forum, candidates made specific, checkable claims about audits, graduation rates, diploma requirements, teacher counts and the referendum's own figures. We checked each one against primary sources and published what held up, what didn't, and where each source is. Read the fact-check →

· New page

The salary is not the cost

The superintendent's salary of $199,851 is the figure that gets quoted. His public contract guarantees at least $284,319 a year once required retirement and benefit payments are counted, with every line traced to a numbered section of the contract. This isn't an argument that he's overpaid. It shows how much every salary figure in this debate leaves out. See the breakdown →

· School board

The board put its rate pledge in writing

The Board of Trustees adopted a resolution setting the 2027 rate at no more than 38.5¢ and limiting each later year's increase to 4¢. That's a real commitment, and we credit it. It also has limits: it fixes one year out of eight, it limits each year's increase but not where the rate ends up, and a later board can rescind it. The ballot's 57¢ and $43,842,578 can't be changed that way. What the resolution does and doesn't do →