INDIANAPOLIS -- Sitting in his office after the conclusion of the session's first half, Rep. Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, toyed with words to describe the past two months' work on the state budget and other legislation.
"Bizarre," he said on Wednesday. "Inexplicable."
Bosma, the House Republican minority leader, finally settled on "inexplicable."
After reseizing control of the state House of Representatives in 2006, Democrats offered up their version of the biennial budget and passed it, 51-48. When a Mishawaka Democrat, Rep. Craig Fry, appeared to stray from party lines, Democrats quickly stuffed a late-in-the-game $2 million expenditure into the budget, one for a Mishawaka-area school system.
Fry voted yes on the budget while Republicans protested in vain and pondered a walkout.
That, Bosma said, was just one of many oddities in what was generally a no-confrontation session, one in which the main statutory quest is to pass a biennial budget. Bosma has demanded an "honestly balanced budget" and says Democrats aren't living up to their promise, leaving parts out of the budget to claim it's balanced.
For example, there is zero funding for prison food, and zero funding for indigent care, Bosma said.
Rep. Earl Harris, D-East Chicago, said the proposal is balanced, with the exception of Medicaid.
Harris said Medicaid is an open-ended commitment and a mandate.
"We don't know how it is going to grow," Harris said. "If it is going to grow, there is certainly enough in the budget. ... I don't think we had to write in (the amount)."
As for prison food, Harris said the governor is about to privatize that service.
"That's what we're being told," said Harris. "You can't make an adjustment unless you know what it's going to be."
Another quest is to pass property tax relief or at least to keep a 2 percent limit on assessment bills in place.
Harris said the Democrats tried to give $1 billion in property tax relief, but the GOP helped kill House Bill 1007, written by Rep. Bob Kuzman, D-Crown Point.
Republicans, including Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, said Kuzman's proposal was a "net tax increase," and its local-option corporate tax would have made Indiana's tax on business income one of the highest in the Midwest.
House Speaker Pat Bauer issued a news release at the end of the session saying the $26.2 billion budget includes increased state support for public schools and colleges, funding for full-day kindergarten and $325 million in property tax relief by having the state take over all new welfare levy costs.
Bauer said the budget reflects the Democrats' desire to first protect property taxpayers and schools.
Harris said the $1 billion in relief is what he wanted, but he will settle for now on the Democratic budget's $325 million in property-tax relief.
The budget now passes to the GOP-controlled state Senate. The House and Senate then conference near the end of the 115th session in April.
Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, said a top priority is to provide relief to homeowners. She said the budget will probably have some relief for Lake County homeowners.
But because a 2 percent cap on property taxes will apply to rental properties in 2008 and businesses in 2010, Rogers doesn't think local budgets will withstand the cuts.
A recalculation of the circuit breaker for businesses by 2010 may be in order, she said.
"We need to rethink the rental properties and the business and industry," said Rogers. "It might be a different percentage."