GARY, Ind. – Indiana lawmakers are considering a moratorium on charger schools in Gary as part of legislation aimed at saving the chronically cash-strapped school corporation.

State Sen. Eddie Melton blamed the city’s charter schools for the bulk of the school district’s financial troubles, which involve an $8.5 million deficit for the current budget year and a total of $101 million of debt, the Northwest Indiana Times reports.

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Melton told a Senate Appropriations Committee the district has lost about 5,300 students to charter schools since 2009, leaving about 5,500 students who still attend the city’s traditional public schools. Another 700 Gary students attend private schools through a state voucher program, and many more attend classes in adjacent school districts as part of the Indiana’s open enrollment system, he said.

“As you can see, we have a plethora of avenues and lanes where we are losing our student population,” Melton said.

At a rate of about $8,000 a year in state aid per student, the students lost to charter schools represents about $40 million a year Gary schools no longer receive, according to the news site.

Charter schools, private school vouchers and other school choice options, of course, are designed to give parents the ability to match their children with schools that best serve their needs, and Gary parents seem to understand the city’s traditional public schools aren’t exactly the best.

State data shows that since 2010 the Gary Community School Corporation has been on academic probation. It’s most recent letter grade from the state Department of Education, for the 2014-15 school year, is an “F.”

Less than 20 percent of all students passed ISTEP+ state standardized tests for English and math in 2015-16, well under half of the state average, data shows.

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But instead of accepting responsibility for poor academic performance Gary school officials are blaming charter schools, and they claim the mass exodus of families pursuing better educational options for their children are part of the problem.

“We’re caught in a Catch-22 situation,” Gary school trustee Nellie Moore told lawmakers. “We’re trying to stabilize ourselves financially by cutting and closing (schools) but as we cut and as we close, we lose the confidence of the parents in the community in our ability to maintain a viable educational system.”

Meanwhile, city officials are working to recruit families to what schools remain by fixing the sidewalks and roads nearby, mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson told the Times.

And as Indiana lawmakers consider Senate Bill 567 to install a state-appointed emergency manager to help Gary schools fix its financial problems, Melton and others are calling for a moratorium on new charter schools in the district, though the suggestion is not currently included in the bill.

Gary, which is among the worst performing districts in Indiana, currently has the highest proportion of students attending charter schools in the state, the Times reports.

Blocking new charter schools would benefit the district’s bottom line while forcing more students to attend the district’s failing schools.

State Sen. Luke Kenley, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is working with Melton on the bill, and said lawmakers haven’t ruled out including a moratorium on charter schools because “true choice” should include traditional public schools.

Kenley said a moratorium was left out of the legislation to help garner support from Republicans in the Senate who overwhelmingly support charter schools. But possible amendments being discussed could include a moratorium on charters until Gary schools pays off a $30 million loan from the state, or a requirement that the mayor approve new charter schools moving forward.

“It’s sort of a freestanding, separate issue that people are going to want to weigh in on one way or another, and I didn’t want to derail the effort we’re making here,” Kenley said.