I have only glanced at House Bill 1001, a/k/a the budget bill. The part where the General Assembly legislated that they get credit for the property tax refund seems particularly crass. The bill includes a subsection requiring the county auditor to mail a written explanation of the refund to each taxpayer which contains the following statement in at least 12 point type:

A portion of your local property taxes due in 2007 are being refunded due to tax relief provided by the Indiana General Assembly. Your refund is in the amount of $________ (insert amount of refund). If you did not receive a check because you pay your property taxes through an escrow account along with your mortgage, your lender will receive the refund and should adjust your payments accordingly.

You will note that there is no acknowledgment that the members of the General Assembly is providing this relief with our tax dollars and the members are not writing the checks themselves. It would be more accurate to say that the tax relief is being provided by the citizens of Indiana. You will also note that there is no acknowledgment that the tax relief was made necessary by past actions of the General Assembly including, but not limited to, eliminating the inventory tax, decreasing the homestead credit, and gutting the property tax relief credit.

[tags]HB1001-2007, property tax, budget[/tags]

The Lafayette Journal & Courier has an article entitled Historic Battlefield fence lined up for facelift. Apparently this year’s budget includes $430,000 for restoration of the fence around the Tippecanoe Battlefield. It’s in bad shape and, given the old timey nature of the fence, it is going to be expensive to repair.

Article 15, Section 10 of the Indiana Constitution provides: “It shall be the duty of the General Assembly, to provide for the permanent enclosure and preservation of the Tippecanoe Battle Ground.” That provision notwithstanding, Tippecanoe County maintains the Battlefield property.

It could have been an interesting case trying to compel compliance with the Constitutional provision if the General Assembly had ultimately refused to finance a repair of the fence.

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has a decent editorial on the winners and losers from the 2007 General Assembly.

The legislature did all right on education, finding $92 million for full day kindergarten but not enough to fund full day kindergarten for everybody.

With respect to fireworks: “cities and counties can set tougher restrictions, but no locality can ban fireworks between 5 p.m. and two hours after sunset from June 29 to July 9; from 10 a.m. to midnight July 4; or from 10 a.m. Dec. 31 to 1 a.m. Jan. 1.” (Two hours after sunset on June 29 — that’s like 3 a.m. under Eastern Daylight Time, right?)

Cigarette taxes will go up $0.44 per pack to fund a health care initiative that will provide health insurance coverage for about 144,000 Hoosiers who earn up to 200% of the federal poverty level (about $41,300 for a family of four). The coverage will pay out at Medicare rates which are more generous than Medicaid rates and should encourage more doctors to offer services.

Owners of horse tracks in Shelbyville and Anderson will get to install 2,000 slot machines at each track. Gambling was not expanded to allow slots at bars and service clubs.

Property taxes will go up fast and some relief will arrive later. Because the property tax subsidy was structured in the form of a rebate, the property taxes will go up the full amount — predicted to be 24%. In particular, those of us who pay property taxes through escrowed mortgage payments will feel the pain almost immediately as our mortgage payments go up. The rebate won’t come until later in the year. Furthermore, next year’s escrow payments will be based on the rebate-free property tax amounts.

That’s enough for this morning. Gotta go be a dad. The boy needs toast. Can’t deprive a boy of his toast.

The Indiana Barrister has a State House update. Abdul says that

[House] Republicans are demanding an addition $50 million in property tax relief, $5 million in education tax credits and the removal of language that would mandate no more than 55 percent of the 14-member Ivy Tech State Community College Board be of the same political party.

Bosma says the tax relief can be paid for by reducing spending increases in certain programs such as the Indiana Public Defender Commission and Tobacco Use and Prevention program.

Abdul then goes on to note Bosma’s indication that there are no House Republican votes for the budget in its current form and that Democrats control the House by a 51 to 49 margin. Party line budget votes seem to be the rule rather than the exception in the House. But, the fact is, this can’t be strictly an ideological party division on the budget — after all, the Senate Republicans will have to approve this thing too. With the margins so thin and with his past voting record this session, I’m afraid the hard line by the House Republicans might put dollar signs in Rep. Craig Fry’s eyes.

Theodore Kim and Mary Beth Schneider have a decent run down of where things stand with the legislature as of this morning. My only criticism is that they end the article with the gratuitous and incorrect statement: “The legislature cannot adjourn without passing a budget.” The General Assembly shouldn’t and it probably won’t. But itcan. As the Indiana Law Blog has been instrumental in pointing out, there is no constitutional or other legal requirement that the legislature pass a budget. There will be hell to pay if they don’t, but adjourning without a budget is within the bounds of things that can be done. Why reporters continue to suggest that there is some sort of prohibition against adjourning without passing a budget is mind boggling to me.

But, that’s just one sentence. The rest of the article is good. It looks like the cigarette tax will be increased to pay for health care. “The plan — first announced by Gov. Mitch Daniels in the fall — has gone through many changes, including last-minute additions to give tax credits to help businesses offer health insurance to workers and to let employees use pre-tax dollars to pay for their premiums.”

Property tax relief appears to be tied to expansion of gambling. Casino expansion has been removed from the discussion, but horse tracks will be able to offer slots if they pay for a license. The license payments will be used to fund some sort of property tax relief.

The budget is getting closer to a deal:

House and Senate leaders, at the request of Democrats, agreed to axe $21 million in funding for two online virtual charter schools slated to open this fall. In exchange, Democrats withdrew their demands for a moratorium on new charter schools in 2008-09.

Gov. Mitch Daniels and House Democratic leaders also agreed on a roughly $1 billion appropriation for road construction over the next two years. The appropriation had been a sticking point.

The General Assembly should adjourn sine die by midnight tonight. If they conclude business without doing something the Governor considers critical — like, for example, pass a budget — he can call them into a special session. At the special session, the General Assembly is not particularly required to follow the Governor’s agenda. They can do more or less than he requests during such a session. At this point, a special session appears unlikely. To my friends at the Legislative Services Agency, I sincerely hope I have not jinxed the process.

Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an excellent update on various pieces of major legislation still pending in the General Assembly. Much of the budget bill has apparently been agreed upon with a major piece of it being to fund the property tax relief fund such that property taxes increase 10% instead of the projected 24%. House Republicans want to fund it at a level that limits the increase to 5 or 6%. Rep. Bauer complained that it was the House Republicans’ 2005 budget that helped get us into the property tax mess and we can only do so much. Sen. Kenley says that the current tentative agreement is so tenuous and interwoven, it’s not clear that much more can be done. He’s also not sure more should be done on this front.

On the gambling front, House Democrats apparently want to sell licenses for slots at horse tracks for $250 million. House Republicans want to auction the licenses to maximize revenues. The House Democrats counter that the slots are supposed to benefit the horse tracks and should be limited to horse track operators. For my part — and let me be clear that I have no solid reasons, just gut instincts — I always smell a slight whiff of corruption whenever the horse tracks are discussed. Maybe it’s nothing more than the manure.

A fair amount of money has also been alloted for full day kindergarten, but apparently not enough for all the kindergarten age school children, and the program will be permissive but not mandatory for school districts.

More proposed laws on their way to the Governor — I’ll bet you didn’t know that Indiana had such a desperate need for more laws.

Bill No.: HB 1339 Digest: Protection from self-incrimination for juveniles.
Authors/Coauthors: C. Brown, Ulmer
04/18/2007 H House concurred in Senate amendments; Roll Call 565: Yeas 91, Nays 0
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Bill No.: HB 1376 Digest: Dental hygienists.
Authors/Coauthors: Mays, Welch, C. Brown, Tyler, Frizzell
04/18/2007 H House concurred in Senate amendments; Roll Call 566: Yeas 92, Nays 1
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Bill No.: HB 1406 Digest: Kinship caregivers.
Authors/Coauthors: Dickinson, Summers, Duncan
04/18/2007 H House concurred in Senate amendments; Roll Call 567: Yeas 95, Nays 0
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Bill No.: HB 1633 Digest: Information on death certificates.
Authors/Coauthors: Wolkins, Welch, Buck
04/18/2007 H House concurred in Senate amendments; Roll Call 568: Yeas 95, Nays 0
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Bill No.: SB 271 Digest: Next of kin control of bodies in murder cases.
Authors/Coauthors: Sipes, Miller, Lanane, M. Young, Drozda, Lewis, Becker
04/18/2007 S Senate concurred in House amendments; Roll Call 451: Yeas 47, Nays 0
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Bill No.: SB 403 Digest: Freezing of consumer reports.
Authors/Coauthors: Dillon, Boots, Hershman, Lanane, Tallian, Drozda, Miller
04/18/2007 S Senate concurred in House amendments; Roll Call 452: Yeas 48, Nays 0
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Bill No.: SB 562 Digest: Authorization procedures for disinterment.
Authors/Coauthors: Mishler, Smith
04/18/2007 S Senate concurred in House amendments; Roll Call 453: Yeas 48, Nays 0
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The Associated Press has an article reviewing events at the State House today under the headline House fails to pass seat belt bill. Under review was HB 1237 which amends the seat belt laws to require all passengers, not just front seat passengers, of most vehicles — no exemption for pickup trucks and truck-plated SUVs, for example. The original house version also amended the local road funding formula. As I understand it, currently pickup trucks are not included in the road formula — a county pretty much gets a chunk of the road fund in proportion to the number of cars it has registered compared to the total number of cars in the state. The House version would have modified that to make the ratio that of pickup trucks + cars compared to the pickup trucks & cars in the state. Generally, such a change would presumably mean that rural counties would get a greater share of the road fund and urban counties a lesser share since a greater percentage of rural drivers tend to drive pickup trucks. (At least that’s the presumption — I don’t know what the breakdown really is.) The Senate passed the seat belt provisions, but took out the road funding provisions.

Today, one of the authors, Peggy Welch, offered the bill up to the House to see if it would concur with the Senate amendments. The House voted 34 to 65 against. So, it looks like differences either need to be hammered out in the conference committee or the bill will be dead. Good luck with that. Messing with the funding formula is always tough sledding.