There's now a local example of how the problems on Wall Street could directly affect the folks on Main Street.

Emmons Elementary school in Mishawaka happens to be located on Main Street.

While the Mishawaka School System has routinely borrowed money to meet it’s payroll while awaiting its next tax disbursement, the district has some concerns this year as it goes shopping for a 1.6 million dollar loan.

“We were hoping that the house (the U.S. House of Representatives) would have passed this bailout legislation and that would open up the doors for us, where a mixture of banks would bid on our tax warrants,” said Mishawaka School Business Manager Randy Squadroni. “We don’t know for sure if we're going to get bids at this point in time.”

“We have about a thousand employees,” said Mishawaka School Superintendent Steven Mills, “they all expect to be paid, and we want to pay them.”

Borrowing money to make ends meet has been routine in the Mishawaka School System.

Today, at a special meeting of the board of trustees, the practice suddenly seemed risky and dangerous.

“We don't think that's going to be the case now, we're not trying to paint worst case scenario or anything like that,” said Superintendent Mills, “we did want to have the time to deal with those kinds of issues should it come into play.”

The special meeting allowed officials to get a head start on the loan process. The original idea was to handle the matter at the board’s October 14th meeting.

Under the revised scheduled, bids are due on October 13th. If offers are received, the board can act at its meeting on the 14th. If no offers are received, the district will have extra time to develop a plan-b.

A spokesperson for the Penn Harris Madison School District said it would likely seek an estimated 10-million dollar loan by the end of the year.