I want to welcome everyone to our legislative wrap-up panel this is part
 of our get to know your government our get to know your government and
 community leaders series and also I want to remind our legislators that if your
 microphone starts sounds like it's crackling just move a little farther back
 from it and we should be fine with that we want to have give a big thank you to
 Ellisville Town Hall for allowing us to use this wonderful space we're grateful
 to our presenting sponsors our presenting sponsor Bloomington Board of
 Realtors for their support and in just a moment I'll invite Alex Everett to
 introduce our moderator and our panelists we also want to recognize our
 gold sponsors of today's event Indiana University office of the vice president
 for University Relations and Monroe County Farm Bureau incorporated we truly
 appreciate your support we also want to thank our premium partners these are
 members who support the chamber at the highest level and you'll see their logos
 on our slideshow please mark your calendars for our ribbon cutting next
 Wednesday at easy clean laundry that's on July 11th at 11 a.m. on June 20th we
 have our power your business luncheon featuring crane and that is sponsored by
 First Financial Bank on July 23rd the town of Ellisville will have a ribbon
 cutting and grand opening at the new Department of Public Works building
 that's right over here our picnic in the park is sponsored by the niece agency
 and Dan Ray real estate and that will be on Friday July 11th you can find out
 more information about all of these events on our website and now I am
 pleased to welcome Alex Everett from Bloomington Board of Realtors to the
 podium good morning thank you the moderator for this event is going to be
 Gretchen Gutman a veteran in legislative and government policy is the vice
 president of the public policy for cook group incorporated before joining cook
 Gretchen served as the AVP of government relations at Ball State University she
 was also a partner at the law firm of TAF the tennis and Hollister LLP in
 Indianapolis please forgive me if I do not pronounce names correctly Gretchen
 also spent eight years as the chief fiscal adviser to the Senate Finance
 Committee of the Indiana General Assembly during her time on staff she
 worked on a number of public policy issues most notably property tax reform
 charter school legislation pension reform gaming legislation and the state's
 biannual budget and school funding formula Gretchen received a bachelor's
 degree in history an MPA from Indiana University and a law degree from the
 Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis round of
 applause the first panelist I'd like to introduce is representative Peggy
 Mayfield sir is she here good timing serves Indiana House district 60 which
 covers portions of Johnson Morgan and Monroe counties representative Mayfield
 was first elected to district 60 in 2012 she is vice chair of the House public
 policy committee and serves on the House Insurance Committee and the House Ways
 and Means Committee round of applause for Peggy representative Matt Pierce
 serves Indiana House district 61 which covers parts of county representative
 Pierce has held the district 61 seat since 2002 he is assistant Democratic
 floor leader and is the ranking minority member of the Indiana House utilities
 energy and telecommunications committee he also serves on the following
 committees courts and criminal code elections appointment rules and
 legislative procedures and the statutory committee of ethics round of applause
 representative Dave Hall serves Indiana House district 62 which includes all of
 Brown County and portions of Monroe and Jackson counties representative Hall was
 first elected to the Indiana House district 62 seat in 2022 representative
 Hall serves as assistant majority whip vice chair of the utilities energy and
 telecommunications committee and as a member of the local government committee
 and natural resources committee
 senator Shelley Yoder represents district 40 which includes the majority of Monroe
 County she serves as the Senate minority leader ranking minority member of the
 environmental affairs committee and minority member on the following
 committees appropriations education and career development health and provider
 services joint rules rules and legislative procedure and the school
 funding subcommittee and last but not least representative Bob Heaton
 represents district 46 first elected to house in 2010 representative Heaton
 serves as majority whip and on the ways and means committee higher education
 subcommittee chair and financial institutions committee representative
 Heaton represents all of Owen County and portions of clay Monroe and Vigo
 counties
 good morning everyone it's great to be with you good morning to our
 distinguished panels it's wonderful to be with you all since everyone got up
 early this morning and is here to listen to legislative a legislative wrap-up I
 thought it would be fun to start our morning out with some fun facts because
 who doesn't love fun facts on a Tuesday so as you all know this session was our
 long session which means that the General Assembly met from January to the end of
 April so I thought I would share with you some of the statistics around the
 number of bills that were introduced in the end product so the number of
 introduced bills that the General Assembly dealt with in introduction this
 year from the Senate was 483 bills the house introduced 683 for a total of
 one thousand one hundred and sixty six bills bills that got out of committee in
 the first house that in the House of Representatives was 296 in the Senate
 was 271 so at in the in the dealing with second reading amendments they were
 dealing with between the two chambers 567 bills out of the second chamber the
 house passed out 231 the Senate 160 160 for a total of 391 you see the funnel
 so the as you can see the committees really are the workhorse of the General
 Assembly that's where all of the work gets done bills that actually crossed
 the finish line out of the total number of 1166 was 243 bills so basically the
 80/20 principle does apply to the General Assembly so lots to talk about
 given the number of bills that winner were introduced and number of bills that
 work through the process so let's turn to our experts and let's listen to the
 less the session wrap up so my first question is and I'm gonna start with you
 representative Heaton and we're gonna go that way can you give us an overview of
 how your priority bills fared in the 2025 Indiana General Assembly well
 thanks for that question Gretchen and thank you all for being here I when it
 comes to bills and you know the number sometimes I remember one time the Senate
 they it was almost unlimited what you can file and I remember at the time at
 that time is Senator State Senator Jim Banks and he had 40 bills that he filed
 and I asked him about one bill about that I was really curious about and he
 wasn't sure about that bill because once you have 40 bills like wow how do you
 focus on that and I had about had about two or three bills really but I suppose
 on a local level in Terre Haute and Beagle County we had a bill I think it
 was 15 House Bill 1543 and that pertained to getting a magistrate there
 in Beagle County and they've been after that for a number of years and and I
 added representative Tanya Path on that bill with me since she really service
 her district is just about all of Terre Haute and and that was a bill that had a
 fiscal of it was two hundred thirteen thousand dollars and but it passed out a
 committee I think ten to zero and and it went to ways and means because of the
 fiscal and I was able to amend that bill in House Bill 1144 authored by Chris
 Jeter and that started the process and it ended up in and went over to the
 Senate and so forth and the conference committee and work things out and bottom
 line is we were able to get that bill but but we had in committee judge Sarah
 Mulligan over there and Judge Dan Kelly and they testified and and explained the
 need that we had to have a magistrate over there and it just worked out well
 and I'm glad we were able to get that done so but anyway it's a it's a process
 and sometimes we have to be patient to the very end and that's when it it passed
 out of the conference committee reports and we were able to get it done so that
 was probably my I guess big priority bill that I got to see through. Senator
 Yoder. Thank you so much Gretchen. I came here so many weeks ago and had some
 priority bills and as Gretchen so masterfully explained you know that
 funnel is real and I came away with some exciting wins though for somebody who
 serves as a minority member there is a handout in the back and it's so pretty
 grab it on your way out on one side it has wins that I can that I worked on on
 one side and then there are some challenges that finished our session
 and some things to look out for for the coming next session but I or at least
 the coming year changes that are going to be made some of the wins when I came
 in I think it was January I spoke of three different bills that I was working
 on and one in particular was Senate bill 176 and at the time I came here it was
 scheduled for its first committee hearing and I'm so happy to say that it
 will it was signed by the governor and it's one of those 243 bills that made
 it all the way through and what Senate bill or Senate enrolled act 176 does is
 it was the direct byproduct of last summer making my way through some of our
 skilled nursing facilities from rehabilitation all the way to full-time
 or nurse your traditional nursing home facility and what I kept hearing again
 and again was our how our nursing shortage is really being a challenge for
 many of our skilled nursing facilities but we see this and we hear that the
 nursing challenge is real at every intersection in our health care industry
 right now so based on that I came back to our legislative agency our
 legislative services agency and asked what can we do I had one one executive
 say to me if we could just somehow harness our young adults who are in high
 school right now interested in the field are taking coursework in this area to
 enter into the nursing field or into the health care field but once they
 graduate the way our code is written currently they have to retake those
 exact same course courses again to count toward their LPN license and I thought
 this is a win for both our young people our students our high school students
 graduating and for the health care shortage in nursing so we work together
 and that bill will allow those courses that students are taking in high school
 to count towards their LPN which is a substitute which is a great win which is
 exciting because as I was revisiting those facilities I in the last couple of
 weeks I put together this skilled nursing tour and at one of the places I
 was asking what do you need and the director of the facility said well we
 actually need more solutions like there was this one bill I think it was 176 I
 was like oh my goodness that was the bill we worked on together and it made
 it and it was really exciting to hear how they were they knew about it and how
 it was going to directly impact them so that was a priority for me another
 priority for me was a bill that I filed that really addressed crimes against
 children and it would change every every place in Indiana code in talking about
 the phrase child pornography to a child sex abuse material and the reason why
 that change is so significant is it too came out of a conversation I had at a
 town hall last summer and the town hall was really about the diploma changes
 that we were seeing and getting feedback from constituents but there was a
 retired Indiana State police officer there and he waited until after and he
 came to me and he said is there anything we could do I worked in the sex crimes
 unit and that phrase is so antiquated and actually retraumatizes people who
 read it and upon hearing it you think oh my goodness of course because there is
 some consent implied in the word pornography and so we worked while my
 bill that I filed that bill didn't make it I used that language applied it to
 another bill it made it through the Senate and then that bill didn't get
 heard in the house so I had to find another home for that bill in the house
 that was going to be heard and eventually it made its way through and
 it was signed so it didn't start out how I wanted but it still made its way
 through and now is going to do good for the state of Indiana and then the other
 area was child care there there definitely is a shortage in child care
 in accessing and in affordability and we worked on Senate bill 463 that made it
 all the way through I wasn't the author of that bill but I was a co-author with
 senator Charbonneau and I'm grateful for those relationships that I have in you
 know in across the aisle and in my own party to to find ways of making good
 change for residents of Indiana so those were three priorities that I started
 with they looked different upon its upon the conclusion of the session but in the
 end it didn't really matter how it made its way through it still ended up being
 good policy and an enacted policy for the state of Indiana so thank you I
 heard from so many of you after that meeting and it really did help inform
 the way that I was able to legislate throughout the whole session so thank
 you to the eligible chamber and to all of you for staying connected with me
 representative Mayfield so I apologize if I look like I'm about to fall out of my
 chair I've been dealing with vertigo for three days so I have episodes of like a
 drunken sailor so out of the bills that I filed I really learned a lesson in
 pride of authorship this year because not a one of them went through with me
 as the primary author however the language of at least three of my bills
 did make it across the finish line using representative Hall's method of amend it
 into someone else's bill and let them do all the work so one of them was you know
 the Ellits bill food and beverage tax which took a totally different look by
 the time it was over the finish line but it was a version that passed aviation
 public works got put into another public works bill and actually there is a
 ceremonial signing with the governor on Thursday afternoon for that bill
 collaborative distilling which you know this is all boring alcohol stuff but
 there are aspects of our alcohol code that needed to be addressed of in this
 particular bill my focus my language was when you do collaborative distilling
 you're allowed to have a certain percentage from one origin and a certain
 percentage from another origin in the same bottle well once it's in the bottle
 you have no way to determine how much came from one guy or the other guy so
 the ATC even said we we can't enforce this so that was the basis of the
 language my part of the language in collaborative distilling and then I'm
 trying to think if there was another one you know I get these of the end there
 was a bill that passed the Senate and I had a I was a sponsor and I had a sister
 bill in the house about discrimination against living donors but they couldn't
 even though it passed the house I mean the Senate when it came over to the
 house when we were looking at it more deeply so the the the argument was I
 have donated a kidney or a liver those are really the only two items that you
 give as a living donor now I go back for life insurance and because they know
 that I've donated one of my organs my rates are higher than it was before the
 donation we couldn't find in the industry enough of that to determine
 that it is a discriminatory policy now you may have one company who says we
 don't want to write that that's different than being discriminated
 against across the board so you know a problem for one person is not a problem
 for all people so that that did not make it across the finish line once it got to
 the house if we have more incidents or more cases of that we may reconsider
 that and then I was working on the indemnification of parks for obstacle
 courses this is very popular throughout the state the the ropes the tires you
 know that that type of obstacle course in a public park except the the insurance
 industry doesn't want to insure it because we can't define it Atterbury has
 it Johnson County has one there's one up in the northern part around Huntington
 County they have one so I was trying to include the definition of an obstacle
 course into we have a oh there is a definition that already exists about not
 high risk but my words are failing me like skateboard yeah extreme sports and
 what I was trying to get it into that and that would indemnify them so let's
 say you're climbing the ropes and you fall and break your arm or even now
 currently if you trip over roots on a trail you you could potentially be
 exposed for some liability so we're just trying to wrap that up however we have a
 lot of trial lawyers who don't like immunity from anything so I'll just have
 to keep working on that I think that there's a way to get there but again
 when you're when you're dealing with this as Senator Yoder said you see you
 know how the funnel works you have to be willing to make those compromises what
 comes out at the end might not be what went into the beginning but there were
 there are aspects and and it's the the benefit are you still getting a benefit
 or do you just want to give up and start over another time a lot of times in the
 process when you are an author of a bill you still have some control over whether
 that bill moves forward so in the case of getting amended into another bill you
 sort of lose that control so even when it you know you legislative process
 strategy-wise I'm thinking okay if they change it over in the Senate when it
 comes back to the house I made dissent I might make some changes when they amend
 it into another bill that's under another author you don't have that kind
 of control anymore so you really there are so many you know we call the
 multi-level chess game that you learn over the course of a legislative career
 I'm still learning some of those moves thank you represent appears yeah I think
 that some of the examples you've heard heard here just shows that a good
 legislator will just focus on getting the policy enacted and try to avoid the
 personality clashes or work around them because believe it or not there are
 occasionally personality clashes in the General Assembly which might shock you
 so I had a bill that came out of a summer study committee of courts and
 corrections where we got testimony from the Vanderbilt County sheriff that some
 people showed up in their community were committing burglaries and they had
 something called a signal jamming device with them and this is kind of a little
 transmitter you can carry around with yourself and it will basically block out
 cell phones you know any wireless door cameras will get you know basically
 disabled the police show up they try to use their you know radios to talk to
 dispatch it can interfere with that and those devices are completely illegal
 under federal law but as you can imagine trying to get the Federal
 Communications Commission which has the job of enforcing that to be paying
 attention to all these cases across the country and then they got to get the
 Justice Department move on it and so we kind of concluded that we needed to have
 some state law that would mirror the federal law so that local prosecutors
 could go ahead and prosecute that and and maybe more importantly seize the
 equipment from the bad actors they're not able to jam things up so some of
 you might know that one of my hobbies is amateur radio I'm one of those geeky
 radio people and so all things radio frequency really fascinating to me so I
 started spouting off in the committee about all this jamming stuff and the
 chair of the House committee basically said why don't you just carry this bill
 since you seem to know all about it so we had a bill that essentially would
 mirror the federal law in the state law passed through the house no problem got
 over the Senate they also had a bill that came out of the Senate which had
 the same policy goal but was had some significant differences which I thought
 were problematic and so we took as often it happens we well first we thought the
 Senate would just hear my bill over in the house but the author over there on
 the Senate side really felt that his bill had to be the one so we decided in
 the courts committee we would move the Senate bill but we basically put my
 provisions into it so it basically became the house bill so then it went
 over to conference committee a little bit of haggling about a few minor
 provisions got that straightened out and the conference committee report was
 signed and voted into law so now the local prosecutors have the ability to do
 something about these signal jammers without having to ask the feds to try to
 come in and do it and so that's just an example of how if you get really hung up
 on like my name's got to be on this I want to have the glory of you know going
 back home and saying I did this a lot of times you won't get stuff done but this
 idea which is another one I use often is just get your stuff in somebody else's
 bill and then sit back and be very quiet about it and let the other guy do all
 the work that's also a very good approach representative Paul yeah thank
 you so they've talked a lot about me sitting back and letting other people do
 the work so I'll explain that I had a bill Brown County has 15,000 residents in
 the county they get well over a million visitors every year and that puts a
 strain on their resources locally and they struggle to kind of keep up with
 the the maintenance of like the of a deer run park they're wanting to do some
 advancements there they got the log jail that's there in town I can't remember
 the name of the other place but the fairgrounds like they're trying to make
 investments there in the county that when you have the visitors come in they
 see something nice they get to use it you know and everybody gets to enjoy it
 so they had a five percent innkeepers tax and they wanted to you know increase
 that and give them the capacity to move that up to eight percent so I thought
 about authoring a bill on that and then I had this idea like I could just put
 that in someone else's bill and let them do it so Peggy or representative Mayfield
 was the lucky recipient of my language when I took it to the Ways and Means
 office I said can you help me find a home for this and her bill was the home
 for that and then as the process played out the language that she was caring to
 benefit Ellisville and the rural transit ended up coming out of her bill and my
 language survived and then her bill got morphed into another bill and my
 language survived in that so it was really I mean I'm gonna my aim is to do
 that as often as possible because if I can just get the language through and
 not have to do all because it's work to get just to get a committee chair to hear
 your bill and then to get the bill out of the committee and then to get the
 bill through the second reading amendments and out of the house and then
 get it into the Senate is an entirely different problem so this year I had a
 bill or it was a resolution to require term limits for members of Congress and
 I tried that last year and ran into some trouble in the Senate and the Judiciary
 Committee and it failed in the Judiciary Committee so this this year we had the
 Senate pass it out first and then I sponsored it in the house so it made it
 out of the Senate this year and we got it through the house so that we signed
 that resolution I was in April March or April so Indiana was the 11th state to
 join 10 other states to call for members of term or members of Congress to term
 limit themselves it calls for an Article 5 convention that takes 34 states to
 actually trigger a convention historically that's not happened because
 once you get close to having enough states to trigger a convention the
 Congress just acts themselves because they don't want the states deciding
 their term limits or that you know any issues so they they usually preempt that
 so that made it through that was my only win other than the one that representative
 Mayfield got through for me but I have several other several other bills that
 I've worked on representative Pierce and I and I think Senator Yoder has been
 involved in this there's a bill that would allow counties to enact a gate
 fee at the state parks to help them with public safety and infrastructure
 improvements and I struggled to get a hearing for that the last two sessions
 and then this session got a hearing passed out unanimously passed out of the
 house with just a handful of no votes went to the Senate got it through the
 Senate natural resources committee and then it got sent to appropriations and
 when stuff gets sent to appropriations sometimes that's because it needs to be
 and sometimes it's just going there to die so that bill just went there to die
 so I took that bill language and I got it inserted into another bill because it
 was successful with representative Mayfield so I thought well maybe I
 could do that again and I did not have the same luck with that second time
 around so I'm still like when I got there some of the best advice I heard
 there was a another legislator that had been there for several years and he told
 me he said Dave just remember this place is not Burger King you don't always get
 to have it your way and that has been like the best advice because we have a
 hundred and fifty people up there and you may have a great idea but everybody
 wants to get their hands on it or insert their language into it so you just kind
 of you learn and you like you don't give up you just come back the next year and
 you just kind of revise it and try to get something through that looks like what
 you want so take the smaller wins but I had another bill that made it out of the
 house it was a it would require research facilities to adopt out animals once
 they're done doing testing on them pretty bipartisan issue I mean everybody
 loves dogs and cats and this is it doesn't have anything to do with mice or
 rats so if you hate them this was not included in my bill that got out of the
 house I think I had like four no votes on that got in the Senate and I couldn't
 get a hearing in the Senate so I'm working on that this summer I think Trump
 had a the NIH they shut down their animal testing facilities they had some
 beagle testing facilities they shut those down so I'm hoping there's some
 like recognition that this is not like a it's not a far left you know it's it's
 just a just a common sense if you know these dogs and cats have served our
 humanity by being tested on you know for these these drugs and to give them a life
 where they can you know rather than just euthanize them to just let them live out
 the rest of their life in a home with people that love them I it just seems
 like a no-brainer to me so I'm gonna work on that again next session and then I
 had an annexation bill and this one caused me some I have three teenage
 daughters and running for this office I had black hair when I started and I had
 mostly a black beard so I don't know which has contributed more to my hair
 falling out and my gray beard but this annexation bill it's we have involuntary
 annexation you guys are all familiar with this and else feels kind of unique
 because Ellisville people want to be annexed into Ellisville to get relief
 from the the burdensome zoning and regulations that are in the county so
 it's not every communities like that Bloomington did their involuntary
 annexation or has attempted it and the problem with that is when you you do an
 involuntary annexation the people that are being annexed they didn't ask for it
 they just got drawn into this map and the city wins by default if those people do
 nothing so then it forces those folks that didn't ask to be annexed forces
 them to go out and do work they have to mobilize they have to get signatures
 they have to raise money so the city has spent millions of dollars trying to
 annex these folks that didn't ask to be annexed and they've had to spend I think
 it's 250 to 300 thousand dollars that they've spent you know that they've had
 to raise on their own to fight the city so I think there should be a the burden
 should be on the city if the city wants to annex it should not be we're gonna
 annex you now you need to go do work to fight it it should be the city saying
 hey we want to annex you and here's why you should want to be annexed here's our
 here's what we're gonna do for you and it should be a voluntary thing so I
 worked on that bill and that took a lot of like I met with representative Pierce
 and I said hey here's what I'm trying to do and and I think his words were I
 appreciate that you're trying to thread this needle but this is gonna be
 difficult to do and it was it was not wrong but we got we got to a really good
 place I think I think there's a chance that I can maybe not have that language
 in a standalone bill in the next session or future sessions but to incorporate
 that into some if I can get it into a House Republican agenda bill that would
 be ideal in some like government reform bill so I'm gonna try and work on that
 to get that into a because it's just you know right now there's nothing I can do
 for the folks that are being annexed or you know attempting to be annexed by the
 city but once that's done if the city is not successful there's a four-year
 cooling-off period and they could go through all of this all over again and I
 just I just you know talking to these folks I knock on a lot of doors and I
 get to visit with them and it's just you know that's a it's a stress it's a it's
 just something that they don't need and you know I'm a huge advocate for land
 owner rights and this is just this is just something that I've it's been a
 tough you know the Senate has passed a similar bill I think like nine times now
 but the house just have it has a different filter for this so I've got to
 find this sweet spot where I can run it through so that's that's definitely gonna
 be high on my list for next time I've got some other bills but none of them
 were successful either so I won't talk about all those well thank you very much
 I think it's it's interesting even though the question was talk about your
 priority bills and the successes each of you indicated that it was if you didn't
 have pride of authorship you could be very effective in getting things done
 working with your colleagues as representative Hall mentioned talking
 with representative Pierce different parties but certainly colleagues so I
 think that that my takeaway from that first question is there's an awful lot
 of collegiality within the General Assembly even though maybe what's what's
 out in the the media doesn't always reflect that you all work very hard
 together for your for the betterment of your communities so appreciate that very
 much okay so as the moderator I'm gonna use my moderator opportunity and call
 an audible so I'd like to hear I'd like to ask what issues did you hear most
 from your constituents maybe they weren't they weren't legislation but what are
 your constituents talking about I'm gonna go with you representative Hall
 since you were the last one on your first up so I have a very interesting
 district I'm about 50% Democrat almost 50% Republican so just about every vote
 that I take irritates half my district so I I've talked to representative Pierce
 about this and there used to be quite a few of us in that chamber that sweated
 you know most of the votes that we had to take and now there's just I mean
 there's very few that have to do that I mean there's nothing it just depended on
 what week it was really I mean that Senate bill one I got a lot of feedback
 on that from local elected officials and then just homeowners like that was just
 I mean I know we're gonna talk a lot more about that one later on but you know
 that some of these bills I think people think when you when you vote yes or you
 vote no that you're 100% yes or 100% no well these these bills are you know
 sometimes they have multiple facets and some of the bills cover just just a lot
 of different you know similar topics but a lot of things in there so you may only
 be 51% in favor of it and that's you know those are the things I try to like
 explain that to people when they reach out to my office is like you know they
 think that I I hate or love you know whatever I've and sometimes it's just you
 know you may be 55% yes at that moment with the information that you have so
 you you know you vote yes and sometimes you're a no for the same same reasons
 and it's just a difficult to get people like because you know and I'm guilty of
 this - we have hundreds of bills coming through there and when people reach out
 they're usually really passionate about like one thing and it's hard to be in
 that same headspace that they're in about that one issue you know that that's
 when you're passing out you know 30 bills that day so I try desperately to
 reply and if somebody calls in and wants me to call them back I try to give them
 a call back you know as quickly as I can but it was yeah it was a hodgepodge of
 things and but Senate Bill 1 was probably I mean by far the most contacts
 I got this session. Representative Pierce. Yeah for me there are two main issues that I got the
 most mail on during the session one were utility issues and concerns about bills
 about small modular reactors promoting those how that might impact rates and
 you know how you were going to balance kind of the risk of moving to this
 energy transition so I heard a lot from my constituents about the various
 utility bills that were moving through and then also a lot about education
 particularly from teachers just concerned about school funding overall
 and then you know also what role vouchers and charter schools might have
 on impacting funding streams for traditional public schools and then what
 will be you know the role of teachers in having a say in how their schools are
 operating how they run and so those those issues were common things I would
 hear about throughout the session obviously property tax was a big thing
 but it wasn't as big as I thought I actually went through and counted out of
 700 responses to my pre-legislative survey I went through and counted and
 only 34 said anything about property tax I was also in another chamber style of
 legislative forum where we use the little red and green cards and when we
 asked the audience how many want property tax reform out of an audience
 of roughly 90 people how many do you think raised the green card and said we
 we really desperately need property tax reform any ideas two two out of 90 now
 it's a different audience you had a lot of elected officials you have a lot of
 business people who appreciate the fact that you have to have a vibrant
 community to attract people and on the other side of the coin when I'm speaking
 to constituents who legitimately I had one township establish a fire territory
 they raised the rate 600% so anything that the state did that would save you
 $300 was offset by the $500 increase you had just from a township that doesn't
 include your schools in your county and so forth so it was so complex but the
 general public unless you were going to tell them you're getting a refund or your
 property taxes are going down they did not want to hear anything you had to say
 so that really cut off that conversation there wasn't a lot of give-and-take there
 wasn't an opportunity to say this is this is what we're doing we're trying to
 fix the the you know the infrastructure of the the the formula so that on the
 long run it's going to benefit you this was the third major rewrite of property
 taxes in 30 years the third time so it is so hard to tweak one area of that
 without affecting another because there are so many factors involved so even
 though we heard a lot about it it depends on who it was coming from whether
 they wanted the reform or whether they wanted more money and it was it was a
 challenging discussion to have thank you I just want to comment because I actually
 asked those I work with the staff I said would you please comb through all of the
 voicemail emails I have my own tally and can you come up with the top ten bills
 that caused the most consternation concern reaction from constituents and
 eight of them I put eight of them on this the challenges side because they
 were challenges and it's property taxes our Medicaid changes that really got
 people engaged and concerned so that was Senate bill 2 we also heard making our
 school board race as partisan heard so much from you on those matters these are
 all bills that actually ended up passing so I didn't you know some things you
 were successful working together with your with me and other legislators to
 get those things changed amended out of bills but these are bills that did make
 it through the session on this the other one would be Senate bill 289 that
 started out as that anti DEI bill and now is non-discrimination in employment
 education heard a lot from businesses to our educators about that bill and of
 course what we didn't hear about but definitely heard about it since was the
 changes to House bill 1001 which is the budget we didn't hear about how the
 governor is going to be able to redact and take back those IU elected alumni
 trustees we did not hear that because it was put in right at the very end and so
 Hoosiers didn't have a chance to even have input but we I certainly have
 received many many many emails texts calls since then so that was in House
 bill 1001 and then other education matters one of the changes in how we in
 our in how we are funding education there have been changed we are now a
 universal choice voucher state we also made changes in sharing of referendum
 dollars and property taxes with charter schools that happened in this session
 and that caused some serious reaction from constituents but another area that
 I don't know if that really was of concern was in the last biennium budget
 the decision was made to offer relief to parents in funding curriculum materials
 textbooks I'm a mom of three it was about close to $200 for each of my
 children that I would have to pay for those curriculum fees and we tried
 unsuccessfully for years to get those put into the budget and in 2023 we were
 successful and there was a line item that there would be relief for parents
 in covering textbook and curriculum fees this session what happened those dollars
 that was erased and they the the majority putting the budget together said
 they're going to fold it into the overall funding formula in in the
 general fund we will cover those in the way that we fund schools so when you see
 that number of how our schools are funded the curriculum fees are folded
 into that which shows a very miniscule for some schools not even an increase
 for our school corporations our school districts but that includes a line item
 that was rolled into how our schools are going to be funded and there was there
 is very much serious concern because of Senate bill 1 property taxes because of
 the sharing of referendum referendum dollars and then that the textbook fees
 have to be covered in in that in those dollars that is that is concerning our
 school districts and how they're going to make ends meet and we're already
 seeing sort of some of that fallout so I heard those bills feedback on those
 bills the most from you and and I appreciate every single outreach that I
 did receive so thank you very much thank you representor Yoder
 representative Heaton yes okay well I kind of when you talk about this the
 property tax issue Senate bill 1 I didn't hear a lot about it until after
 March 17th when they had that big rally on st. Patrick's Day up at the State
 House a lot of people wearing green t-shirts and so and then that kind of
 got things worked up a little bit and then of course about six weeks ago we
 got our statement from local government and saw where well my taxes there in
 Vigo County has been just doing this over the last few years and my assessed
 valuation for next year is up $146,000 so I'm here not only hearing about it but
 I'm gonna have other people hear about it from me about that issue but but it's
 kind of it's all over the place but I I think probably early on was the the
 partisan school board bill that I heard and and locally in Terre Haute I met with
 Marie Thies who's the ISTA teachers union rep and I like Marie and we have a
 great relationship we talk over coffee about it and and another teacher there
 also but and JD Prescott represent Prescott from the east side of the state
 he had that bill in the house and Senator Gary Byrne I think had had it in
 the Senate and they the Senate passed it and then we we looked at it and changed
 it around and so forth and as that turned out I believe you know you can you
 can put down if you want to and this deals with a general election you can
 put down whether you're Republican Democrat independent or just leave it
 blank and so I heard some loud voices on the right that says we need that we need
 that and so so anyway we give we gave more options and so forth as far as that
 bill goes but sometimes you know you scratch your head and think you know you
 know why are we doing this but but anyway it's just the way it turned out
 but it's and I can go on and on speaking of schools and it and the funding I've
 got the school runs for Richland Bean Blossom School Corporation as well as
 Monroe County Community School Corporation so that was you know I think
 there's always concern about you know hey you know funding for our schools you
 know traditional public schools as well as charter schools and and so forth but
 but that's and that was something that didn't get cut and in as far as the
 funding goes for the schools it's 2% first year and then the second year of
 the biennium so when you think about it it was a 5% increase because 2% the
 second year of that first year increase it really comes to 3% instead of 2% but
 so that was something that is so you know very important but when you look at
 our at the budget you know what we had to look at too was a Medicaid funding and
 it has just gone up and up and up over the last few years and so we tried to
 get a handle on that as well and that came through House Enrolled Act 1001 so
 but there's there's a lot of things that we're looking at but as far as
 Representative Pierce mentioned as far as I think it was House Enrolled Act 1007
 deals with nuclear energy you know important thing also is you know you
 look at health care reform and I happen to be with Chairman Bradford Barrett
 yesterday for about five hours in a golf cart in Noblesville we talked to a
 little bit about that but I said well Brad were you happy with the final
 results he says well we really had to give and take towards the end and so he
 was happy but he wasn't happy and so forth but it's but that's something that
 here in Indiana we got to look at and we look at you know that gets into the
 pharmacy benefit managers and so forth it's a it's a discussion in and of
 itself but but that's something that we got to keep looking at and tweaking it
 and see what the future holds with that so but it's very important with
 businesses and those employers who are who has those group health benefits for
 their employees and I think they're going to be seeing a decrease in those
 premiums in the next few years to come well I appreciate that thank you very
 much oh I'm sorry the challenges of property taxes he mentioned that his
 assessed value went up significantly mine went down a little bit my net assessed
 value still went up a little bit and my taxes went up you know I couldn't write
 that check fast enough before they changed it so that is the challenge of
 trying to make a statewide policy for a property tax formula because every
 single unit of government it you know takes a role in that and it's so hard to
 try and benefit everybody no that's that's a good good summary of kind of
 the process certainly I've made a career out of property taxes so as a life
 learner I'm really happy that we've completely changed the system I've got
 something new to learn so let's um let's put 2025 in the rearview mirror and and
 kind of let's turn to Senate bill one you all have kind of mentioned it so my
 question is okay who do we think who's the winner who's the biggest winner out
 of Senate bill one this this is the lightning round representative Heaton
 you'll go first okay so short answer then right right because I want to make
 sure that there's Q&A so there may be other people that I would I would have
 to say you know the taxpayers and so bottom line but so and and it seems like
 once you pass that then it seemed like the week before the our our spring and
 fall statements came out and so people saw you know in case I myself I saw mine
 went up this way but but we're looking at as far as the future as far as 2026
 payable for the 2025 year but so it had I'd say the taxpayers great senator
 Yoder well we're at a chamber event I will speak to a winner would be 1.2
 billion dollars in tax relief for businesses and that I think probably is
 one of you know those are some of the winners in Senate bill 1 it's anyone who
 pays property tax not because it's such it was such a great fix-all bill but
 because it adds a transparency so now you're more aware of how you they came
 to that figure and we controlled the growth so that ninety percent of the
 people will not will pay less than what they would have without that bill and
 about 60% will pay less than they did I think the market itself will sort of
 iron itself out over time so what it wasn't the ticker tape parade type of
 bill but it did address the underlying problems so I think it's difficult to
 know because the bill is pretty complicated and I've seen different runs
 we had a very short period of time like three hours to try to figure out what the
 bill is doing because it was basically written as a second reading amendment but
 I think that for those who have the more valuable homes I think they will get the
 bulk of the relief so my understanding is that ten percent up to three hundred
 dollars of a cut and I've seen some data that suggests that if you're in a very
 modest home like a hundred and twenty five hundred fifty thousand dollars you
 may actually end up paying a little more just range and then the other kind of
 group of people who got left out were renters you know my district I have lots
 around I basically have the city of Bloomington nor northern two-thirds is
 basically my district and a lot of renters in there and the renters are
 paying that property tax through their rent as the landlord then takes the the
 rental money and uses that to pay the property taxes and the House Democrats we
 tried to get some relief for renters in there because they're not going to
 benefit from SB 1 but they're going to continue to pay that rent and so it
 would have been nice to have something right now there's a there's a deduction
 that you have on your income tax if you're a renter that you can take that
 really hasn't been changed significantly for a very long time so it to me it
 remains to be seen how it's all going to play out I think it's interesting that
 I've talked to some local government officials and they're all hiring
 consultants to come in and try to explain to them what their revenue is
 actually going to be so they can begin to think about their budget and that's
 you know you know you got a complicated bill when the consultant class will be
 working overtime to help local officials understand what exactly they're gonna
 have to work with so we're just gonna have to see what happens so I'll touch
 on a different angle Senate bill one like obviously had property tax relief
 but then there were just accountability and your elected officials so one of the
 things that it did it it decoupled your local income tax rate from your share of
 the levy so now every year of county councils I saw a few members in here
 they have to vote to affirm the rate that they want for the following year so
 when I was on the county council in Jackson County for almost six years and
 I got the benefit of the 2016 council that voted for a lit public safety tax
 that I never had to vote for every year it was just automatically reinstated well
 now you have to say hey we need that money this year and we're going to take
 an affirmative vote to keep that rate at I think Monroe County's 2.1% so this
 will kind of it'll put it silos that local income tax also so that right now
 you Monroe County has a local income tax council so the Bloomington City of
 Bloomington eight of the nine members of the City Council could vote to increase
 the local income tax for everyone in the county and we've talked about this I
 think here before they did that in 22 and they raised it like 54% well there
 were people outside the City of Bloomington that were very upset and they
 said hey we we don't even live in the City of Bloomington but somehow these
 City Council members could raise our tax and you know it's unfair for them
 because they don't have a they don't have an option to vote for or against
 that that body so this eliminates that now so that the County Council will have
 a vote for income tax for every county taxpayer and then the City of
 Bloomington will have one that just goes on the City of Bloomington so you'll see
 different rates for people depending on where they live which is honestly the
 way it should be if you're living in the city and you want to pay for those you
 know added services then you'll get to do that now another thing that it did
 with bonds there's a one-year cooling off period now so if you had like in
 Jackson County I'll use them for example again we had a before I got on the
 council they had a jail and that jail bond was falling off and that when that
 bond was falling off they thought hey we need to make sure we keep our rate flat
 because if we ever need that money in the future we want to make sure we don't
 have to come back and take a bad vote to get that you know to build that rate
 back up so they would just build another building so we built a judicial center
 a really nice one so I think it was like 15 or 20 million dollars and so this
 this will give you more accountability so it's not just this like ride the the
 votes of other people before you now you're gonna have to explain your votes
 why you wanted the money why you needed the money why you needed that project so
 I think that's a huge for me that was a big deal to eliminate that local income
 tax counsel put that burden back on your local elected officials to say this is
 we need it and here's why or we don't need it so we're gonna lower your rate
 so I think that was a huge win in Senate bill one also it's under Yoder just to
 sort of add a nuance the concern is for those communities who do need a new
 project there has to be bonding and if that income tax is going to be revisited
 every year there will be a concern we will need to look at how can communities
 like ours that is looking to build a new jail how will they be able to get a bond
 for a tax that is going to have to be revisited every year there isn't that
 certainty there and we didn't plan for that with the the way it was written in
 Senate bill 1 so I think there is going to need to be some revisiting of that
 language to ensure that communities can still make these investments and that
 they will be able to receive a bond for those for those new projects well the
 good news is we've been fixing property taxes since 1973 so I'm confident that
 there will be more fixes along the lines I want to make sure that there's time
 for the audience if anybody has any questions if you don't that not not a big
 deal I've got a couple more but is there anybody that would like to ask a
 question of our panel members having served for over 30 years in public health
 that's always my kind of take first I want to say thank you all for showing up
 today and sharing with us so with the budget cuts and being in a state who
 clearly has not valued public health over the years but a few years ago
 decided to put some funding into that but yet it's being pulled back I think
 everybody would say we don't really like taxes we don't like property taxes but
 we do like services and even with changes with the mobile the statewide mobile
 food that takes money away from local government so my question is what do you
 say to our local officials about how they're supposed to fund services say
 like public health but other services that people expect and need with fewer
 resources and less funding please I think that you're gonna have local
 officials look with greater detail at needs versus wants versus luxuries I
 mean you're literally gonna be breaking it down and needing to justify to their
 immediate constituents how they're going to accomplish that it will be challenging
 on the public health I prefer to think of that because I know we cut it back
 significantly that isn't I don't believe that is because we don't like public
 health funding I think that was a combination of we put all this money out
 there counties are still ramping up their programs to get where they can
 utilize that and at this point and under these financial circumstances we went
 with the figure that was spent you you had you know the statewide the counties
 had spent X amount of dollars and there were there were monies that were yet to
 be committed because they were still in the thought process granted they will
 probably be I would hope reinstated in the future just not right now so you've
 got to work with what you created over the last two years and then as the
 economy changes we'll have to see where that goes and hopefully we will be
 reinstating those funds so I don't want to say we've cut that health first
 program because I don't believe we have and I don't think that's our intent we
 just had to work within the framework the biggest surprise I know is one of
 the things is when we got down to the very end of the budget cycle when we
 knew that it was going to be a tight budget year or tight budget cycle and it
 was even worse than we anticipated so we had to make those adjustments and
 hopefully in the next budget cycle we'll be able to you know start adjusting
 those in the upward numbers great thank you any anybody else representative
 Hall yeah so I I think you know in 2023 we we appropriate I think it was 225
 million I could be off on that number for that health first Indiana fund and I
 voted for that because I knew that there was I think it was like it was either a
 dollar turns into $7 and benefit or like $14 I could be off on that but it was
 substantial and we were we had a lot of room to improve so we would probably see
 the the higher end of that range and you know just like I think part of your
 question was how do these local governments deal with the reduced
 funding same way we did you know we had a we had a budget that from the
 December forecast that looked like we were going to be able to do a lot of the
 things that we really wanted to do and when you see a revenue forecast in April
 that shows two billion less than what you had in December you have to make
 those decisions like what do we really need and what are the wants and you know
 funding schools funding public safety I mean we did 80 million dollars in the
 health first Indiana fund which is a reduction you know from 20 25 or 23
 numbers but that was new money in 2023 so it's still I mean it's not a like that
 wasn't there for 30 years then all of a sudden it's just gone so it's there's
 still an investment there it's just not as substantial as what we would have done
 had we had that that budget forecast that we were hoping for but I still think
 there's opportunity you know that the economy I think we were at like a when
 we got the first budget or first forecast I think it was like a in
 December was like a 15% chance of recession and and in 20 or in April it
 was like a 60% chance of recession and I not like looking at my own retirement
 account it seems like things are moving in the right direction again now and so
 I'm hoping that we see some some daylight I guess in the future here and
 we can come back and revisit that because I think that is important and
 there you know there's obviously there's things we can improve but public health
 is definitely one that's still I mean I think a really important thing for our
 state house and caucus both but it's under thank you represent a pulse under
 yoder so just to put a number on it the new biennium budget has a 60% decrease
 in public health funding we're not talking just shaving 60% cut in funding
 and we had not invested in public health any increase for 20 years so we gave
 our public health departments one year to ramp up and to fix this gap and a
 department our local health departments that had learned how to just get by
 learned how to be conservative learned how to do more with less then we may
 make this big plea to them saying we have not made this investment and for the
 first time Hoosiers life expectancy has dropped so we are going to make this
 investment finally in public health and in one year one year later we're going
 to take that away because based on that we didn't see them spending enough in
 that first year that's just unreasonable I would say I would say thank you to our
 local public health departments for not just irresponsibly spending all the
 money they were given that they were trying to roll this out in a
 responsible way and it does seem that this the forecast of the two point four
 billion dollar shortfall much of that we asked again our public health
 departments to really take the brunt of that hit so I just I you know this
 wasn't just asking our public health departments to do you know to step up
 and do more with less we had already been asking them to do that and then we
 finally made the investment and in a year later sort of pulling that rug out
 and saying oops sorry we're gonna have to now ask you to go back and make those
 adjustments so I appreciate that question and wanted to put sort of some
 numbers thank you representative he yeah thank you please for that question and
 towards that those last day or so when we're negotiating the budget to know one
 we did put in a two dollar cigarette tax increase okay and to my premium cigar
 smokers they didn't like the three dollar cigar tax increase but but that
 was something our caucus we talked about for several months and it was almost
 like that last hour okay we got to do it and we did and and so there's I think I
 I read Senator Bray mentioned like you know there is a fine line there as far
 as you know if you if you raise it high enough then maybe that 16 year old 17
 year old may say hey heck with the angle smoke cigarettes and on the other hand
 the older generation they may say well hey I'm I love these things I'm gonna
 continue to smoke but but you know we did that and I don't know how many
 hundreds of millions that we're gonna that's gonna help but as far as that
 would go to Medicaid and so forth but but that's something to the last hour
 the last minute we put that in there in the budget so well I appreciate the
 question appreciate the panel's candor I think one of the things that one of the
 takeaways that I hear is it's it's an important issue and the General
 Assembly will continue to revisit it which I think is very positive so I
 understand not the the right outcome that we all were hoping for but it's not
 something that at least you all have indicated you don't see value and in
 continuing to be supportive of so appreciate that anybody else from yes
 sir get some clarity on public education so we and the record shortfall that
 you'll mention with the forecast so expansion of school choice as it's
 called by some will be a four hundred million dollar in the second by in the
 second year the biennium that's the number I've seen that expanding vouchers
 will cost four hundred million dollars in the second year representative you
 said you have the school runs with you for traditional public schools and you're
 saying you're getting a 2% increase is that is that what you said yes so so
 traditional public schools are getting a 2% increase each year to buy anything
 that also includes textbooks so help us square then the sort of articles we're
 seeing where Monroe County schools are projected to lose 18 million dollars
 Brown County schools I think were one to two million dollars I don't know what our
 BB is I'm just having trouble kind of squaring up numbers here and take us
 through that choice of a four hundred million dollar increase for vouchers
 when we see a two point four million dollar shortfall projected to forecast
 that's a pretty big decision when we're looking at education it's there's a lot
 of discussion between K through 12 education but not bifurcating it talking
 about traditional public schools versus charters and vouchers so I'm trying to get your message on
 that because it's something we talked about a lot here in Monroe County and trying to be a little
 more informed so thanks well I'll
 start the debate yeah so the funny form of the thing that we've talked about
 is these curricular materials which used to call textbooks is now instead of
 being a separate line item appropriation is now within the funding formula so when
 you say you're getting 2% this year 2% next year that includes money that
 normally would not have been in the formula so if you were to back out that
 textbook money and make it a separate line item again that 2% would go down so
 you have to so understanding the runs and their practical effect is can be a
 little bit challenging sometimes so in a time when the state was challenged with
 revenues and wanting to do well for public schools that this it's a little
 bit perplexing to me that the decision was made to go ahead and essentially
 make the vouchers universal by including that last percentage of the wealthiest
 families in the state because as a policymaker that money buys us
 absolutely zero nothing there is no benefit to that expenditure because the
 wealthiest people can already afford to send their kids to private school they've
 made that decision they can afford it they're doing it the only change will be
 they will now be subsidized they will receive I guess seven thousand dollars
 or some some amount off of their tuition which by the way you know if your
 private school tuition is say 14,000 a year it's nice to get seven but if you're
 a lower-income family that seven is not going to get you to whatever their
 prevailing private school tuition is so so at a time when you have to make
 difficult decisions about your budget and where your resources are going to go
 to me it was not a good decision to divert a significant amount of money to
 the wealthiest families who I think could probably get by okay without that
 subsidy and that would have freed up some other millions of dollars for us to help
 traditional public schools so I think that's where the debate is anybody else
 like to respond well other than disagreeing with parts of representative
 period I I ran I got data on Monroe County because it was brought up your
 student count is way down wait you've lost 600 kids in the last decade so I
 don't know the causes for that I'm not saying that you know it's it's anything I
 think that somebody needs to flesh out some of these underlying numbers because
 you're you're you're down you were at ten thousand six hundred and fifty nine or
 sixty nine and now you're down to ten thousand sixty nine a decade later that's a lot of money in
 addition to but but your funding has continued to increase so I'm not your you
 know you're you're you're CFO for that school system but I think that a very
 critical set of eyes needs to be put on these budgets because you also have
 referendums for teacher pay now if you have to pass a referendum every seven
 years to keep your your payroll going that's not sustainable in my eyes so I
 don't have a direct question I mean direct answer to your question but I'm
 not so sure that the the school choice program has much to do with it the
 school choice program you know the families who received that get less than
 what they would have gotten if they'd gone to public school they're going to
 get money to go to school and that is the whole basis is the money follows a
 child you get more if you go to public school you get less if you go to a
 private school as far as the the lower income can't afford to go to private
 school anyway they have so many programs I've yet to find a family who could not
 go to a private school based on the program at that school offers to offset
 those costs I've never seen a child refused because they couldn't pay that
 has not come to my attention because they find a way these organizations find
 a way for these kids to attend the school of their choice but this is a
 little concerning when you see that precipitous drop of ADM even as the
 funding continues to go up I don't have an answer for you I just Monroe County
 seems to be in a worse situation than almost every other school system that
 I've looked at thank you representative Hall so I've got more to say but just
 add on to Rhett Mayfield Monroe County schools in 2020 were collecting 42
 million dollars from property taxes and after two referendums in 2025 they're
 collecting over 70 million dollars with the same reduction in kids so I've talked
 to folks at the State House this year and they were there you know talking
 about Senate Bill 1 and the effects it would have on the school and I pointed
 that out that they are collecting you know I think it was like 67 percent 68
 percent more than they were in 2020 and that you know before I got to the State
 House the General Assembly had made a decision to fund students and not just
 systems and when you hear the stories you know there's there's no public
 charter school in Brown County and you know there's my my kids go to the
 same traditional public school that I went to and it's a fantastic choice for
 our family and I love it and I'm thankful that I have a good school to
 send them to not every family has a great traditional public school to send
 their kids to so when you hear the stories from them and you you know you
 hear that hey this was not a good fit for my child they love the fact that they
 have a choice as a family and as that student to find a school that best suits
 them rather than just be locked into this school because of what their zip
 code is or because of what their income is now they have a choice to go
 somewhere else and you know that individual student you know it's I think
 it's important to like see these kids that if they're if they're in a school
 system that they're failing in that they have an option to go somewhere where
 they can succeed and I I just I mean I think there's value in that and
 obviously there's this struggle over you know who gets the most money or who gets
 the biggest increase and I'm looking at these stories from people whose kids
 are doing better because we have these options for them so that that's important
 to me I want to just sort of champion MCCFC for it I don't want to end on a
 note of disparaging MCCFC this local community our community made the
 decision based on the argument that they made to pass the referendum those were
 decisions made by voters knowing what was at stake and for for state
 legislators to say hmm no that's too much that is an overreach voters here
 voted on that we know that the state's cap before this year was paying for
 teacher pay was $40,000 a year and this community decided we're go or MCCFC
 voters decided we want to attract and keep the best and we're going to pass a
 referendum to support higher pay for our teachers and that's what happened and it
 was a source I will say pride when we came this year to address teacher pay
 and in Monroe County the average for Monroe County those individual they
 showed us how many teachers would be impacted if we moved salaries for
 teachers from $40,000 a year to $45,000 year well that was the bill that we were
 looking at this year and actually we did increase it to $45,000 a year but they
 let us see by County how many teachers that was going to impact to be able to
 say this is going to be a good thing one one teacher in our County made less than
 $45,000 a year because they made more because our voters said we want our
 teachers making more we want to make an investment and that was a source of
 source of pride because we had some there 800 teachers and 500 teachers but
 this community said no we're going to teach our treat our teachers better I
 want to say thank you thank you for making that that decision because it is
 an investment that's worth it so to our RBB administration teachers and staff
 thank you to our MCC SC administration teachers and staff thank you thank you
 for working so hard every day thank you appreciate that representative yeah hey
 friend I'll share these numbers with you afterwards and I appreciate that one
 thing I want to say as far as they're in Terre Haute and Beagle County we've seen
 a decrease in the student count over the last several years and and Clay County
 just over to the east of there they've had a slight increase and I know several
 families are sending their kids over to Northview North Clay my my grandkids
 they're all in traditional public schools now but you know Alice and my
 daughter she she went to home school Daniel and Elise and Seth but the other
 two they went right into Staunton Elementary and so it was but it was
 their their choice to do and they're they're getting fabulous you know when
 it comes to education and and just all the other activities and you know track
 and sports and so forth that type of thing but but it's and then getting into
 the property taxes to a little bit change the subject here but you know
 Beagle County your taxes are going up but you come over to Clay County they're
 low very low and and type therapist people gonna vote with their feet and
 they're they're moving out of the county and going over to Clay County so anyway
 but it's a you know like we've said earlier the money follows a child and and
 it does and so we'll see how it goes this upcoming year and a half two years
 great thank you thank you to the audio okay what work we're wrapping we're six
 minutes away from deadline so
 as a retired teacher I'm always glad to hear the system is being addressed and
 particularly the salaries I doubt that much is being done at the non teacher
 level that could be made more streamlined and more productive what I was
 questioning his painting was she was talking about Monroe County when and the
 10,000 students is that Monroe County community schools or is that Monroe
 County schools overall that's Monroe County school district okay so we're not
 addressing our private schools nor the RVB system correct okay thank you Jen you
 thank you so much first of all thank you for everything that you've done this is
 not an easy session I think one of the messages that I'm hearing is there's
 things that need to be adjusted moving forward sometimes the news coming out
 from the state makes it feel like well the locals will have to figure it out
 you'll have to do more with less but knowing each one of you I know that you
 all are very accessible and always willing to partner and help so as we are
 trying to figure out a way forward in some challenging transitional times how
 would you like us to do it and specifically are there certain timelines
 this summer as you're in you know summer committees how would you like
 information from us how can we best partner with you to figure out the best
 ways forward I think you're not likely to see much focus from the legislature on
 fixing things until we get through the local government budget cycle so I think
 by the end of this fall we'll kind of see where things are settling out and
 then the legislature is going to make some assessment about whether or not
 local units have the resources they need and it worked out or whether somebody
 needs a correction so I think that's the practical thing is just seeing how
 the actual numbers play out over this next local government budgeting cycle so
 when we get into that fall when those final votes are taken you know what are
 the tax burdens look like what are the resources look like I think that's going
 to be the the main thing and I would just say overall whether it's the state
 budget or the local budget there's kind of two competing narratives or kind of
 approaches to this thing right so the governor likes to essentially say you
 know he's a business guy he can cut five percent you know with blindfold his
 hands tied behind his back that's easy stuff to do and so you'd say okay well
 that makes sense and now we're gonna have a five percent more efficient state
 government they will do the same things they've always done they'll just do it
 more efficiently because someone's like being more of a disciplinarian for them
 and that's great if that can happen but I think that actually what's probably
 happening is five percent less will get done and maybe people won't miss that
 five percent maybe it won't be a big deal but for other people it might be
 important and I think that's the same kind of discussion or the prism through
 which people works will local units of government find a way to be even more
 frugal more efficient deliver those same services with less revenue which would
 be a good thing for taxpayers or will just less get done and I think that's
 what the legislature is gonna have to make an assessment about you know
 through the local budgeting cycle and into the next session I also think that
 there's a lot of one-offs that will need to be addressed so I'm going to use
 Morgan County I have almost the entire county and I hate getting into the weeds
 but on property taxes you know you have property tax replacement credits PTRC
 counties and you had some counties that were levy freeze this goes back a long
 time and as we're moving through my county calls me and they said this is
 going to affect us by this much I'm like no it's not you you just have to do this
 and this well there are about a dozen there are I don't know 20 some that
 counties that use PTRC there are maybe a dozen that use levy freeze my county is
 one of like four that use both and I was not aware of that so then they do have
 further limitations and I we couldn't fix it before the end but I do have the
 commitment from the chair of ways and means we need to find a way to fix that
 because that has a an incredible in impact on how the new formula will affect
 this particular county and I think we're going to find that as these budget
 sessions for local governments come around where we need to make tweaks now
 luckily because it's not an appropriation it can be done in an on
 budget session I think that we are actually going to be looking at some of
 these as early as August in trying to approach the the fixes for that and
 you're on both sides of it you have local government funding and you have
 your business members who are very concerned and you know business personal
 property tax is on both sides of that that two million dollar threshold sounds
 like a lot but most of the big manufacturing you know industries
 they're way beyond that so that two million catches all the little guys who
 have to pay their accountant you know $400 to figure out that they don't owe
 anything that's that's what's going to get caught or wrapped up into that under
 the two million dollar threshold of business personal property tax so that
 was that will help small businesses great anybody else well I just want to
 express my appreciation to the panel members for coming today and sharing
 your thought oh I'm sorry representative he didn't know I was just going to make
 one comment about my good friend down here on the far right talked about gray
 hair and gray facial hair he can just shave that beard off and he looked much
 younger so he don't have we don't have to you know there you go always a good
 suggestion well let's give a round of applause to our panelists thank you thank
 you very much I think one thing that I've taken away it well there are two
 things one we're going to continue to mess around with property taxes which is
 great for me second thing is you you'll will need the short session because
 obviously we've got more work to do in the state of Indiana but I I want to
 express my appreciation to all of you for your public service it's time away
 from your families your business and your communities and it's not easy you've
 got to respond to constituents you got to respond to people who are not your
 constituents and all of you are are exemplary public services service
 members so I greatly appreciate it I'd also like to express my appreciation to
 the Ellisville chamber for allowing me the opportunity to moderate it's been
 wonderful and without further ado I'm going to turn it over to you thank you
 have a great Tuesday I want to express our gratitude to our amazing panelists
 we don't take it lightly that you're here we really appreciate you taking your
 time to be with us today I also want to thank our moderator for being for
 moderating today Gretchen just you did a wonderful job thank you so much special
 thanks to our presenting sponsor Bloomington Board of Realtors for their
 generous support and we want to thank our gold sponsors Monroe County Farm Bureau
 and Indiana University office of the vice president of university relations
 for making this event possible we appreciate all of you being here today
 and taking your time and also remember to check out our website and look at
 those events that I mentioned earlier thank you so much for being here today
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)
 (orchestral music)