SB 174 has passed the House on a 97-0 vote and is returning to the Senate with amendments. As passed by the House, it requires a person repossessing a motor vehicle or a watercraft to notify the local Sheriff’s Department of: (1) the identity of the repossession company; (2) a description of the vehicle; (3) the name and address of the person believed to be in possession of the vehicle; and (4) the address where the motor vehicle repossession agent found the motor vehicle. This has to be done before the repossession or within two hours after. The House amendments to the Senate version of the bill seem pretty minor. There probably won’t be any difficulty getting this passed.

The Governor has signed into law HB 1331 which requires a city, county, or town to provide its police officers with body armor for their torsos. It allows the local units to pay for the body armor from their cumulative capital funds.

On a 95-0 vote, the House passed SB 102 specifying mental health services that must be covered under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Coverage for mental illness under the program must include the following:

(1) Inpatient mental health services and substance abuse services provided in an institution that:
(A) treats mental disease; and
(B) has more than sixteen (16) beds;
unless coverage is prohibited by federal law.
(2) Psychiatric residential treatment services.
(3) Community mental health rehabilitation services.
(4) Outpatient mental health services and substance abuse services, with no greater limitations on the number of units per rolling year than are required under the Medicaid program.

I know I’m wrong about this, but I was basically raised in such a way that mental illness never seems as intuitively real to me as physical illnesses. I suppose it’s because I have a hard time distinguishing between those mental activities a person ought to be able to fight through with some self-discipline, and those things that are beyond any reasonable level of self-control.

Following up on a previous entry about SB 21 which requires scrap metal purchasers to collect more data about the people from whom they buy metal, I was interested to see that Rep. Soliday offered an amendment to eliminate the requirement that scrap metal purchasers get information about the source of the metal and the photograph of the person selling the metal. Soliday’s proposed amendment was voted down on a voice vote. I was a little surprised to even see such an amendment offered after what appears to be a serious scrap metal bust in Indianapolis.

As reported by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener, so far, the Republicans seem to have the better of the debate on how to fix the depleted unemployment insurance fund. The Democrats have simply declared that there should be no benefit cuts for the unemployed.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have called for restructuring of the system that requires increased premiums to be paid by employers, a front-loaded benefit system that pays more during the first four weeks of unemployment with decreased payments thereafter, and changes in eligibility rules that make certain construction and manufacturing jobs ineligible during planned lay offs.

I’m probably tainted by my collections practice, however. I’ve seen a number of people who are simply using unemployment as a bridge for an unexpected development. But there are others who seem to be constantly in-and-out of work and on unemployment with a frequency that can’t be chalked up to bad luck. The Republican plan seems geared toward helping the former while discouraging the latter. Whether it does so equitably or effectively, I can’t say. But their efforts at least sound more reasonable than the Democrats simple declaration that the benefit side of the equation is inviolable.

HB 1535 is an interesting concept, but as written is a little confusing to me. It requires the division of family resources to implement a program to provide retailers who sell food at a farmers’ market with wireless point of sale terminals that are connected to the electronic benefits transfer (EBT) system. However, the division may limit, to a number not less than twenty (20), the number of wireless point of sale terminals that are connected to the EBT system; and issued to a retailer who sells food at a farmers’ market.

My uncertainty based on how the bill is written is as to whether that 20 terminal minimum is state-wide or per-retailer. Twenty terminals statewide seems like a very small number, and twenty terminals per retailer seems like an unreasonably large number.

Still, the basic concept of letting food assistance money be spent at farmer’s markets seems like a very good idea. Folks who need assistance can thereby get the food at those markets which is often healthier; and local farmers and retailers would be able to profit from such sales.

I don’t know enough about coal gasification or the law signed by the Governor to try to explain it, so I’ll just link to the article by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener. It involves a convoluted system of contracts and a thirty year commitment. The Citizen’s Action Coalition has its concerns:

Kerwin Olson, program director for the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, said that last year coal prices doubled even as natural gas prices were going down.

“Certainly the price of coal is going to affect the cost of this synthetic natural gas,” he said. “As far as the ratepayer impact goes, it’s unthinkable for us that the state would force ratepayers to enter into a 30-year contract with no review of the price whatsoever.

“The way we see it, that’s an erosion of consumer and ratepayer protection.”

Back in the late 90s when I worked for LSA, the Citizen’s Action Coalition was raising concerns about electricity deregulation even as lobbyists for Enron and others were pushing for it. California went through an electricity deregulation debacle after it passed such a measure and Enron has gone. So, when the CAC sounds the alarm bells, it catches my attention.

Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an article on the Senate passage of a bill to fix the insolvent unemployment insurance fund.

The Republican-controlled Senate yesterday approved a plan to make the insurance program solvent by 2012 by raising taxes on employers, cutting benefits and changing the system so companies that routinely lay off employees will be forced to opt out of the program or pay nearly the full cost of their benefits.

But House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said his caucus has no plans to accept provisions that would affect workers.

I think they’re going to have to accept provisions that would affect workers to some degree. Maybe Speaker Bauer is just talking big for negotiations so that whatever finally passes does not affect workers as much.

As passed by the Senate, the proposal would provide about $125 million less in benefits to unemployed workers annually. Hardest hit would be those who earned less at their jobs and those unable to find new jobs quickly.

Weekly benefits — which now average about $298 — would begin dropping after the fourth week of payments. But workers who enrolled in state-approved training could avoid having their payments decrease.

The Senate Republican plan would also force companies that frequently lay off workers to pay sharply higher premiums. A company’s maximum premium per employee is now $392 annually. Under the proposed changes, the maximum would jump to $820.

Companies that rarely lay off workers would pay slightly less. The minimum premium would drop from $77 per year per employee to $75.

Seems to me that many of the same arguments based on the bad economy one can use to resist benefit cuts to employees would also work to resist increasing taxes on businesses; (particularly small businesses such as *cough* *cough* mine.)