In October 2023, after being on the job for just days short of 10 months, Greg Brown abstained from voting to approve the 2024 budget, saying that he didn’t understand it enough to support or oppose it.
It’s hard to overstate what a dereliction of duty this was, given that approving the annual budget is one of the core functions of the school board, along with setting policy, and hiring, overseeing and approving recommendations by the superintendent. Honestly, such an admission of being unable or unwilling to do his job should have been accompanied by his resignation.
When Greg Brown has been criticized for this by citizens online, some of the supporters of the 2022 Brake, Brown & Sharp campaign have defended his abstention due to the budget being complicated and him only having a month to review some parts of it and two weeks to review other parts. Of course, this ignores the previous nine months that he had been voting on specific expenditures that required an understanding of the budget to support or oppose.
To gauge just how out-of-the-ordinary Greg Brown’s abstention was, I went back and attempted to look at board meeting minutes for the past 15 years for the largest 30 districts in our state. Quality of detail in the minutes varied widely over time and between districts, but I was able to identify the vote counts in 168 instances relatively easily.
Out of 168 total annual budget approvals in large districts across the state, 975 total votes were cast. There were only two other abstentions: one from a South Bend board member who had an issue with a lack of clarity in how an area of the budget was defined and one from a Hammond board member who refused to vote because the budget fell short of spending the district had already committed to. For those who like charts, here's a breakdown of the 975 individual votes.
Greg Brown is apparently uniquely unqualified for the job of school board member, as his abstention was the only one I could find where someone claimed they just couldn’t understand the budget 10 months into the job.
If not Carmel Excellence, then who?
If you're proud to live in one of the top school districts in the state...
If you appreciate and support our teachers...
If your kids have benefited or are benefiting from a world-class CCS education...
If you want our schools to stay welcoming to all students and their families...
I hope you'll join me in opposing Carmel Excellence and voting for Jon Shapiro and Kris Wheeler.
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