INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana General Assembly passed a balanced biennial budget early Saturday that gave more funding to pre-K programs for lower income families and bumped up the state’s gasoline tax to cover road infrastructure.
The Republican-led session sidestepped some historically troubling social issues while finding new debates in liquor laws and renewable energy.
House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, called the session “monumental” for completing "a historic session with the single largest investment in our state's roads and bridges in our state's history."
At about 12:15 a.m., the final discussion of the budget had shifted to the Senate where Luke Kenley, from Noblesville, held up a copy of a worn 1993 budget. Inside the bound copy, Kenley had written, "Need to learn more about Workforce Development.”
As the session wound down Saturday, he told the Senate, “Some things never change.”
His announcement may be symbolic of what faces the 2018 General Assembly – developing a fluid education-to-career path for Hoosiers with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
“We're doing a really good job training people for cosmetology. We help kids get credit for flipping burgers. The reality is we need to be training and partnering with our businesses,” said Senate Speaker Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne. "We're gonna get that fixed at the local level through the schools. That's probably the number one issue, is to get our young people hooked up and lined up in the pipeline to fill these jobs. If we don't do that they're gonna leave the state."
For the 2017 session, however, critical funding bills now go to Gov. Eric Holcomb.
"This session was marked by a spirit of collaboration and civility that should stand as a model for the rest of the nation,” Holcomb said in a statement issued at 12:51 a.m.
He praised Bosma and Long for ensuring the state “continues on its path of prosperity, invests in roads and bridges, prepares a 21st Century workforce, attacks the drug epidemic, and delivers great government service.”
Holcomb has not indicated if he will veto any remaining bills, although environmental groups and 16 tech executives pushed him Friday to not sign into law a bill that would eliminate net metering, a system by which solar and wind power users are reimbursed when they sell extra power they generate to utility companies.
The budget, which in Indiana is adopted every two years, was the biggest item of the session.
Its provisions include:
• Annual spending of $15.9 billion in fiscal year 2018 and $16.4 billion in 2019, leaving a surplus of $79.9 million the first year and $119 million in the second.
• A reserve balance of $1.8 billion in 2018 and $1.9 billion in 2019.
• An increase to $22 million a year for the state’s pilot for low-income families, On My Way Pre-K.
• K-12 education funding of $345 million over the biennium, representing a 1.6 percent increase in 2018 and 1.7 percent in 2019.
• $5 million to the governor’s office for substance abuse programs, funding that Holcomb had sought to aid in treatment and enforcement.
Democrats said education funding was not enough and appropriations were inflationary. Democrat leaders also criticized Republicans for sending more money into credits for scholarship granting organizations, also known as SGOs. They're used mostly in school choice programs.
“Not only did we give less money to pre-K than what we wanted but we added a few million dollars more in SGO tax credits,” said Senate Minority Chair Karen Tallian, D-Portage. “We could have added that money to send more kids to pre-K instead of giving voucher credits to rick\h people.”
Indiana House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, assessing the session with Senate Minority leader Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, criticized Republican distractions.
Among them was the issue around Ricker’s convenience stores, which found a legal loophole to sell cold beer by obtaining restaurant licenses and selling burritos. Also on the Democrats' list of criticisms was bill that requires teens to petition juvenile court if they want to obtain an abortion without their parents’ consent.
“You could choose to get mad and stay that way about how this session deteriorated into a morass of social issues and drinking cold beer with a burrito, but that doesn’t wholly describe what many Hoosiers witnessed,” Pelath said.
“At last, we have seen a commitment toward improving our crumbling infrastructure, at least for the next several years," he said in a statement. "It is good that there is a growing consensus of the need to put every penny you pay at the pump toward improving our roads. It would have been nice to see more shared sacrifice from all Hoosiers, but the powers that be felt corporate Indiana deserved to keep getting huge breaks, even as prices at the pump rise for the rest of us.”
Hoosiers will likely see a 10-cent-a-gallon increase in the state’s 18-cent gasoline tax at the pumps beginning in July. Owners of all passenger vehicles will pay a $15 annual registration fee. Electric vehicle owners will pay $150 registration.
Those “user fee” increases are expected to raise $617 million next year, with $357 million marked for the Indiana Department of Transportation projects and $260 million for local road projects.