A number of bills passed the House by healthy margins today:
HB 1018 – increasing the maximum speed limit of a school bus from 55 mph to 60 mph. Passed 90 to 8.
HB 1027 – The minimum wage bill, increasing the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.50 by 9/1/08. The bill also doubles the inheritance tax exemption from $100,000 to $200,000. Passed 71 to 29.
HB 1075 – Individual development accounts. Adds repair of a primary residence as a permissible use of an “individual development accounts” and tweaks some of the dollar amounts involved with IDAs. Passed 98-0.
HB 1119 – Prohibits the Department of Revenue from charging a fee to a custodial parent who seeks to seize the federal or state income tax refund of a parent who is delinquent with child support. Passed 97-0.
HB 1165 – Provides an income tax credit to a taxpayer that installs an auxiliary power unit in the taxpayer’s semi-tractor. Passed 96-0.
HB 1183 – Authorizes the transfer of service credit and contributions from the 1977 police officers’ and firefighters’ pension and disability fund to the public employees’ retirement fund (PERF) for appointed police and fire chiefs. Passed 97-0.
HB 1208 – Education programs for veterans. Provides free tuition for 124 semester credit hours to a state school to veterans of the armed services who suffer a service related disability while serving between 9/11/01 and such time as the President declares an end to the War on Terror. Passed 99-0.
HB 1364 – Reestablishes the sentencing policy study committee. Passed 98-0.
HB 1546 – Provides that a military discharge record is not available for public inspection and copying. Allows the veteran who is the subject of the record, a veterans’ service officer, an employee of the Indiana department of veterans’ affairs, a funeral director, and other persons under a court order to have access to the record. Passed 95-1. (Rep. Murphy was the 1 nay vote.)
HB 1722 – Coal gasification tax credits and cost recovery. Provides that a facility that produces synthesis gas as a substitute for natural gas is eligible for a coal gasification technology investment tax credit. Requires the utility regulatory commission to allow a utility that purchases substitute natural gas to recover any costs arising under the purchase contract through rate adjustments. Amends the definition of clean coal and energy projects to include a project using coal to produce substitute natural gas. Passed 84-11.
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