Valpo City Council appoints Karl Cender back to the school board | #citycouncil

Valparaiso Community Schools is different from many other school districts in that its school board members are appointed by the city and township rather than elected by voters. As part of this duty, the City Council appointed Cender Monday night.

However, this won’t be his first time on the board. Cender served on it previously from 2010-2022 and was the board’s president in 2021.

Cender’s most notable contributions to the board during his previous tenure were financial ones. Cender, a CPA and financial consultant by day, has over 35 years of experience providing public sector municipal and financial advisory services. He is the owner of Cender and Co.

During the appointment process, Cender touted his financial expertise as a reason the council should choose him.

When Cender first joined the School Board, Valparaiso Community Schools was in a financially precarious situation, district officials including Superintendent Jim McCall have said over the years. When Cender last stepped down from the board, McCall told Lakeshore Public Radio that it was Cender who helped dig the district out of that hole. He called Cender a financial “wizard.”

Also during his tenure, Cender saw the school district successfully pass two tax referendums in 2015 that he told the community were necessary to fund the schools’ programming. Then in 2022, he saw the district renew its operating tax referendum. Cender said the process of renewing this referendum was what prompted him to step down in 2022.

“We were going through a lengthy process with the referendum and I thought if we get this passed, it might be good to take a break,” he said in an interview earlier this month with the council prior to his appointment. “It’s been good to have a year off just to refocus a little bit.”

While Cender and his supporters on the council were celebrating this appointment, Valparaiso’s Democratic Party organization wasn’t too pleased.

“It is amazing what can happen when people have faith and trust in a fair process,” the Valparaiso Democratic Committee wrote in a statement released Tuesday. “There were 14 Democrats who applied to be the 2023 City Council School Board appointee, likely the most ever in VCS history. Republican leadership on the City Council crushed that faith last night.”

The party’s chief concern revolves around political persuasion. City Council and School Board bylaws mandate that the board cannot have more than a simple majority of its members from the same political party. Because three of the four current City Council appointees are considered Republicans, the 2023 appointee could not be a Republican. The political party of the candidate is determined by what party’s primary election that candidate most recently voted in, or, if the candidate has never voted in a primary election, the party’s county chair must certify them as a member of that party. However, the Democrats pointed out that his appointment was approved 5-2 by the council on party lines.

“It should say something when the Democratic appointee received no Democratic votes,” the party wrote. “This is a disgrace and shameful.”

The party also criticized what they see as “a huge conflict of interest.” Cender and Co., which the appointee owns, does accounting work for the city among other government agencies, it said. The party said it is awaiting the results of a records request through the Indiana Access to Public Records Act that will tell them exactly how many contracts Cender’s company has with the city.

“We had a new generation of qualified candidates, all with school-aged children, who were ready to serve the public good,” the party wrote. “They are skilled and prepared. But, we have a good-old-boys club hell bent on keeping control and recycling themselves in an awful game of musical chairs, where everyone else more qualified doesn’t get a chair.”