A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

HB 1034 – Daylight Savings Time

by Leave a Comment

Introduced Version, House Bill 1034 This bill repeals the legislation Indiana passed way back when that exempts Indiana from the Daylight Savings Time provisions. So, knowing what it does requires some knowledge of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s regulations on daylight savings time. I don’t have that.

But, my best guess is that Indiana is in the Eastern time zone. USDOT doesn’t allow the state to be split, otherwise, some of Indiana would more naturally be in the Central Time Zone. In fact, the legislation being repealed says that the part of Indiana that would fall in the Central Time Zone would observe daylight savings time if the state could be split.

If this passes, then folks in Gary and East Chicago won’t be able to share Chicago’s time, and folks in Covington and Attica will find that in April, it won’t be getting light out until 9 a.m. or so and won’t be getting dark out until 10pm in June. On the other hand, I guess the folks in the eastern part of the state will be happier. This has been the basic problem with daylight savings time legislation in the past. The state splits about 50/50 as to whether to have it or not. Most folks who think about it have a fairly strong opinion one way or the other. The folks who are in favor of it are divided between Eastern time and Central time, so they have been losing the fight for decades. Now, we have one party rule and a governor who apparently thinks it’s a good idea, so maybe it has a chance.

DNR PILOT from state to county

by Leave a Comment

Interesting. Basically requires a “payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT)” to be paid by the Dept. of Natural Resources to the various counties based on the number of acres of DNR land in the county. The payments come out of the state general fund.

Introduced Version, House Bill 1026

Representative Koch has also introduced HB 1025 which authorizes a municipality to charge the DNR for public safety protection provided to DNR property. So, I’m going to go out on a limb here and speculate that Rep. Koch represents an area that feels like DNR is freeloading and draining its resources.

HB 1028 – Attorney’s fees on medicaid liens

by Leave a Comment

Introduced Version, House Bill 1028

I like this one! Increases the attorney’s fee to be paid by the Medicaid office in personal injury recoveries. It’s not limited to PI recoveries, but basically what happens is that Medicaid covers the medical costs for an injured person. The injured person thinks someone else is responsible. Let’s call him a tortfeasor. So, injured person has a cause of action against the tortfeasor. The Medicaid office has a lien on the claim against the tortfeasor. Usually what happens is that the injured person hires an attorney on contingency to pursue the tortfeasor. This bill just increases the amount the Medicaid office has to pay the attorney as its “fair share” for benefitting in any recovery against the tortfeasor. It’s 25% before suit & 1/3 after, up from 7.5%/10%. Since contingency fees are usually around 1/3, the Medicaid office has been getting a free ride to the tune of about 25%, coming out of the hide of either the attorney (don’t cry) or the already impoverished injured party.

SB 10 & 11 Phase out and elimination of inheritance tax

by Leave a Comment

Introduced Version, Senate Bill 0010 and Introduced Version, Senate Bill 0011 SB 10 provides for the elimination of the Indiana inheritance tax in 2009. In the meantime, it reduces the tax owed by 20% in 2005-2006, 40% in 2006-2007, 60% in 2007-2008, and 80% in 2008-2009. SB 11 just gets rid of it in 2005.

Now, I’m all in favor of reducing taxes to the extent possible. But, the fact is, government is necessary for certain purposes. And it has to be paid for. My proposal is to reduce government as much as possible. Then, if we have more tax money than we need, get rid of sales taxes, gas taxes, property taxes first. You know, taxes that ordinary people pay. Once those taxes are gone, then you go after the inheritance taxes. My position is that a person has a greater claim to his paycheck and money he’s actually earned than an heir has a claim on someone’s estate. That being the case, it’s more fair to deprive the heir of some portion of his claim on the estate than it is to deprive the common laborer of some portion of his earnings.

SB 45 – Proposed Legislation

by Leave a Comment

Introduced Version, Senate Bill 0045

Jury service exemptions. Eliminates automatic exemptions from jury service. Protects a person called for jury service from being subjected to adverse employment actions. Prohibits employers from requiring or requesting employees to use annual, vacation, or sick leave for jury service.

(One tidbit, one of the cleanup sections addresses the vital issue of ferry maintenance so that folks can get their horses across the river to serve on a jury.)