Big issues left for the Legislature
NWI BAILOUT

Region legislators have precious little time to sell colleagues on a massive economic development package. Trading one of Gary's two lakefront riverboats for a land-based casino near Interstate 80/94 is the late-breaking linchpin for a list of projects approaching $1 billion. Extending South Shore commuter rail lines to Lowell and Valparaiso and building a teaching and trauma care hospital in Gary both carry price tags of more than $300 million. Regional bus service and Lake Michigan shoreline development also are part of a mix that could spur a transit income tax of up to 0.25 percent in Lake and Porter counties.

LITTLE CAL

Region legislators should have little trouble finalizing legislation to replace the 11-member Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission with a five-member board chosen by the governor. The question is whether they can come up with $14 million to finally finish the two-decade old levee project. A GOP budget plan offers $9 million.

BUDGET

Interim Gary schools Superintendent Myrtle Campbell met with lawmakers Friday hoping to force changes in a proposed funding formula through which her district would see a projected 5 percent funding cut next year, followed by a 7 percent reduction in 2011. Democrats say more equitable school funding is their top concern, along with ensuring the budget supports university construction and other spending designed to create jobs.

UNEMPLOYMENT

The state has borrowed $725 million from the federal government since Indiana's unemployment fund went broke in December after eight years of deficits. Republicans say a reduction in worker benefits must be part of the solution.

By Patrick Guinane, Times of Northwest Indiana
patrick.guinane@nwitimes.com

INDIANAPOLIS | As one of four negotiators seeking a bipartisan solution to Indiana's bankrupt unemployment fund, state Sen. Karen Tallian forecast a dour weekend ahead.

"I will be here, and I'll be working," the Ogden Dunes Democrat said Friday at the Statehouse. "I'm not going home till we're done."

Whether legislators indeed will be done by the stroke of midnight Wednesday -- their statutory adjournment deadline for the year -- has been the subject of Statehouse speculation for weeks.

"I am as eager as all the members I talk to that the session end on time," Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said Friday.

There still are many things Northwest Indiana lawmakers would like to accomplish, including creating a new mass transit framework for the region and securing financing for construction of a teaching and trauma center hospital in Gary.

But there remain only two musts.

The first is fixing the unemployment fund, which for more than eight years hasn't taken in enough tax revenue from employers to cover benefit checks to laid-off workers. The second essential item is passing a new two-year state budget.

House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, said negotiations with Senate Republicans on a roughly $30 billion budget are going well.

But Daniels -- without issuing a veto threat -- declared that spending target too lofty. He warned that Indiana could be staring at a $740 million annual gap between state tax revenues and spending when $4 billion in federal stimulus money dries up in two years.
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