A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial entitled A taxing review. Amidst numerous caveats warning about fine print and apple/orange comparisons, the Journal Gazette cites reports that show Hoosiers get off pretty lightly on their taxes, particularly compared to neighboring states and that, from a tax perspective, Indiana has one of the more pro-business structures.

Indiana ranks 29th in per capita taxes paid with an average of $1,916 per person in state taxes. (Compared to Hawaii’s high of $3,048, Texas’ low of $1,367, and neighboring Michigan at 11th with $2,379 per person.) The editorial also notes that the conservative Tax Foundation ranks Indiana as the 12th best business tax climate in the country, despite Governor Daniels’ insistence that Indiana’s business climate wasn’t conducive to job creation. (Clearly, now Hoosiers will have employers banging down their doors with jobs since we’re going to fiddle with our clocks.) With respect to business tax climate Ohio ranked 29th, Michigan was 36th, Illinois was 23rd and Kentucky ranked 44th.

The backdrop of a biennial state budget adoption is an appropriate
setting for a review of state tax burden – a review that shows Hoosiers
don’t fare as poorly as they might suspect. On a per-capita basis,
Indiana ranks behind 29 other states in the amount residents pay in
state taxes.

Representative Frankenst . . . errr . . . Bosma, with the assistance of Rep. John Ulmer (R-Goshen) and Rep. Troy Woodruff (R-Vincennes) has brought DST back to life. In an article entitled, House passes daylight-saving time bill, Mary Beth Schneider and Kevin Corcoran report that the vote stood at 48 to 49 against Daylight Saving Time with opponents calling for Bosma to close the voting. He didn’t. Reps. Ulmer and Woodruff were prevailed upon to renege on their vote, and Rep. Bosma immediately closed the vote once he got the result he wanted. Democracy in action. Presumably the villagers with the torches and the pitchforks will show up at the next election.

The roll call vote is here. I see that Rep. Lehe (R-Brookston) switched his vote from Yea to Nay. As you recall, he could have killed it on the first go around, but voted “yea” and kept it alive long enough to go to the Senate. Reps. Gutwein and McClain stuck with their flip-flops.

The Star has some related articles:

DST deal sparks another debate by John Strauss. This article discusses the history of Indiana’s presence in the Eastern Time Zone. From 1918 to 1969, Indiana was in the Central Time Zone. Since then it has been in the Eastern Time Zone. (Hence, in some parts of the State, Eastern Daylight Time is known as “double-fast time” — Central Standard Time = slow time, Central Daylight Time/Eastern Standard Time = fast time, and Eastern Daylight Time = double fast time.)

Indiana’s Tortured Time Debate looks at Indiana’s relationship with time zones and clock fiddling:
-1883 The railroads come; changing God’s Time (noon is whenever the sun is overhead) to Railroad Time. Noon Railroad Time comes at 12:16 p.m. Indianapolis God’s Time.
-1917 to 1919: Time Zones and Daylight Saving Time.
-1919: Daylight Saving Time repealed nationwide
-1942 to 1945: Daylight Saving Time implemented because of WWII.
-1945: Daylight Saving Time repealed nationwide
-1949: Indiana on Central Time – passes law mandating Central Time and no Daylight Saving Time. Counties in the east continue to do what they want.
-1956: Statewide referendum shows a majority prefers Central Standard Time. No Daylight Saving.
-1966: Yet Another National Daylight Saving Time bill enacted.
-1971: Indiana exempts itself from Daylight Saving Time.
-2005: The DST bill that couldn’t quite live and couldn’t quite die squeaks into law, and Indiana is on DST again.

Update 4/29/05 8:38 p.m. (HST): The Evansville Courier Press has an article that makes it sound like Rep. Woodruff (R-Vincennes) wasn’t happy in his role as the final flip-flop necessary to pass Daylight Saving Time. Some quotes:

House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, then held the vote tally board open for several minutes as arms were twisted.

Finally Woodruff flipped, casting the 51st, tie-breaking vote. The measure passed 51-46. Woodruff repeatedly had said in recent weeks that he would not support the measure because Eastern Daylight Time is not popular in his district.

When Woodruff’s vote came on the board, Bosma immediately closed the machines and supporters cheered. Several Republicans patted Woodruff on the back and when reporters approached, he was immediately ushered into the Bosma’s office with the doors closed.

Gov. Mitch Daniels’ chief of staff entered, as did the House Republican campaign director. After a few minutes, an ashen Woodruff emerged to talk to reporters.

“It became pretty obvious to me that this had become a partisan issue,” Woodruff said. One Democrat who supported the bill in the Thursday morning vote switched to no and a few other Democrats who were soft supporters voted no.

Woodruff said with a shaking voice that the supporters said the measure could bring new jobs to the state.

“People in my district certainly don’t know that there’s any value in it,” Woodruff said. “I’m trying to move the state forward. Some things are more important than re-election. And I think this is one of those issues.”

When asked why he would vote with his party, but against what he had said his district wanted, Woodruff said, “At the end of the day, I’m going to have to explain this vote to my constituents. If you can’t explain why you did something one way or the other, then you probably shouldn’t have done it.”

Passed House Conference Committee Report, Senate Bill 0498 This Conference Committee report, passed by the House but still pending before the Senate allows a county or municipality to provide for penalties of up to $7,500 for a second violation of an ordinance (the first violation remains capped at $2,500). This does not apply to a parking or traffic violation. Also, it allows the county or municipality to provide for community service in lieu of the defendant paying a fine. Community service has to be by agreement of the defendant and the county or municipal attorney and has to be in writing. The fine would be assessed if the defendant failed to abide by the community service agreement.

House Bill 1142 Conference committee passed the House. It’s apparently still pending in the Senate. It requires the division of family and children to pay funeral director and cemetery expenses incurred for an individual receiving or certified to receive certain public assistance. Gives the division a priority lien on the estate. Allows the state to use federal or state Medicaid funds to pay life insurance premiums for a Medicaid recipient or applicant who has assigned the life insurance policy to the state or made the state a beneficiary of the life insurance policy.

I have mixed feelings on the state paying life insurance premiums. I suppose it’s o.k. — basically the state is just maximizing an asset of the individual. Still, it has the stink of those dead peasant’s policies Walmart takes out on its janitors.

House Bill 1033 Conference committee report has passed both chambers.

Establishes a procedure for an owner of a brownfield to petition the department of local government finance to waive or reduce the outstanding charges against the brownfield listed on the tax duplicate. . . . Extends the voluntary remediation tax credit by two years. Increases the maximum credit amount and changes the method of computation of the amount. Increases the total amount of credits allowed statewide to $2,000,000. For purposes of the law concerning underground storage tanks and petroleum releases a governmental entity is not an owner or an operator of an underground storage tank or a petroleum facility if the person conveyed ownership or control of the tank or facility to the governmental entity because of circumstances in which the governmental entity involuntarily acquired ownership or control. [Reduces potential liability for such a governmental entity,] Expands the application of the waste tire fee to tires mounted on farm tractors, implements of husbandry, and semitrailers. Requires the environmental quality service council to study during the 2005 interim issues concerning energy matters, including investigating methods to increase research, development, production, and use of alternative fuels.

Governor Daniels has vetoed House Enrolled Act 1224. (Credit belongs to the Indiana Law Blog for the catch.)

HEA 1224 establishes the aerospace and aeronautics initiative to be administered by the Indiana economic development corporation. I appreciated the bill because it called for the enhancement of the role of Indiana’s colleges and universities in the development of the aerospace and aeronautics industries in Indiana. When I read that, I predict a large role for Purdue, in my back yard, to play in developing such an industry in Indiana. So, it’s local political pork. Not necessarily admirable, but nice to get.

Gov. Daniel’s veto message essentially says that he doesn’t like the General Assembly telling his pet Economic Development Commission what to do.

This legislation runs counter to the flexible structure and intent of the IEDC, in that it prescribes express requirements and imposes specific objectives for the IEDC in the aerospace and aeronautics area. Pursuing initiatives in this sector may very well be a proper and profitable strategy, but that should be a matter for the IEDC itself to determine, consistent with its own priorities and resources.

Permit me to doubt that Governor Daniels will refrain entirely from making his thoughts known to the IEDC as to how it might see fit to allocate its resources.

In the House, the Daylight Saving Time bill received a vote of 48 for and 49 against as Mary Beth Schneider reports in an article entitled House vote falls short on time bill. Because there were fewer than 51 votes against the bill, it isn’t quite dead. It could be brought back. This bill can’t figure out whether to live or die. It’s like a zombie you keep blasting at only to have it keep coming at you. (This happens to me a lot.) The end of session is Friday — my prediction is that the thing will pass 51 to 49 Friday at midnight. But that’s just based on this bill’s prior history.

The Star has another article laying out who voted for and against. The summary is:

Voting yes were 39 Republicans and 9 Democrats. Voting no were 13 Republicans and 36 Democrats. Excused from voting were Tiny Adams, D Muncie; James Bottorff, D Jeffersonville; and John Day, D Indianapolis.

Kevin Corcoran, for the Indy Star, has an article entitled Daniels says he will sign GOP budget: In reversing course, governor praises lawmakers, says he’ll close the spending gap himself

“I’ve said all year that I thought Indiana ought to have a budget that was honestly balanced now,” Daniels said. “The legislature, after a lot of great work, has produced a budget which is balanced. It’s honest. But it isn’t balanced now. It comes very close, and I’ve decided to sign it.”

. . .

“With zero interest from the Democratic side, we had to go with something that would attract virtually every Republican vote,” Daniels said. “That’s why we came up a little short of the grand slam.”

From the sidebar of the article:

Budget highlights

Here are highlights of the 2005-07 budget bill:

Taxes
Includes no state tax increase but would require higher property taxes.

Spending
Spends $307.4 million more in 2005-06 and $170.1 million more in 2006-07, for increases of 2.6 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively.

Schools
Increases school funding by 1.2 percent next year and 1.3 percent in 2007.

Deficit
Eliminates the state’s nearly $600 million deficit by mid-2007.

Medicaid
Increases Medicaid funding by 5.2 percent a year.

The Evansville Courier Press explains the property tax issue by saying

The bill would allow property taxes for schools to go up an additional $4 million on top of the higher base in 2007.

The bill grants all schools statewide an average of just more than a 1 percent per year general funding increase. But to counteract a new funding formula that has funding more closely track enrollment, not a per district minimum, the budget would allow corporations to raise property taxes to cover several costs.

If I understand right (and I may well not, since I haven’t read the bill), state legislators are magnanimously passing the buck, allowing local government to raise property taxes to fund schools.

The Indy Star has a related editorial that says:

In short, Republicans lawmakers, with little or no Democratic support, are ready to approve a budget that eventually arrives at a balance while also avoiding tax increases.

Those moves, however, won’t come without costs — to schools, to universities and to the poor and sick.

The Indy Star has another article on DST entitled, It’s D-day for DST. The new twist is that the DST bill was scheduled for it’s final hurdle, a vote in the House, which was derailed after Governor Daniels put his foot in his mouth again, blaming the Democrats for what he viewed as an inadequate budget bill. (I haven’t read coverage of that yet — I hope Daniels also had harsh words for those in his own party who dogmatically rejected Daniels’ proposed tax increase regardless of how necessary or how good an idea it would be.)

After Daniels verbally slapped around Democrats for inadequacies in the Republican budget, support began eroding among Democrats who had previously supported passing Daylight Saving Time. This bill really is sailing the voyage of the damned. It may get to its destination, but the bill and everyone involved is taking a real beating.

Senate Resolution 0063 – Honoring Reggie Miller. I applaud the sentiment, and I’m glad the legislature saw fit to recognize Reggie, but jeeze, they need better resolution writers. I mean, with all Reggie has accomplished, do you really want to lead with this: “Whereas, Reggie Miller is and always will be the heart and soul of Indiana Pacers basketball, spending his entire 18 year career wearing number 31;”?