Bryan Corbin and Eric Bradner, Evansville Courier & Press staff writers
corbinb@courierpress.com
NDIANAPOLIS - Late into Tuesday night, state lawmakers were grinding through more than 100 proposed changes to Gov. Mitch Daniels' property-tax restructuring plan.
Meanwhile, a Senate committee killed a proposal to eliminate property taxes on homesteads by amending the state constitution.
The full Senate, however, passed one of the key elements of the Daniels plan - shifting 100 percent of school-operating costs and child-welfare costs from property taxes onto other state sources.
Another part of the governor's plan - capping residential property taxes at 1 percent of assessed value - survived a Senate committee vote in modified form.
Despite the legislative wrangling Tuesday, in the back of lawmakers' minds was the news that state Sen. David C. Ford, R-Hartford City, was in critical condition in a Fort Wayne hospital. Ford's office Tuesday announced that he had been hospitalized last week with flu-like symptoms and had been diagnosed to have cancer.
Here is a roundup of Tuesday's events:
The Senate Rules Committee killed a state constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes. Instead, senators approved a summer committee to study the idea of property tax elimination, to prepare legislation that might be heard in 2009.
Senate President David Long said his Senate Republican caucus had decided against bringing proposals to abolish property taxes for a vote, effectively rendering them dead for this session. Senate Joint Resolution 8, a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have repealed property taxes, had garnered some support from Senate Republicans.
Long, R-Fort Wayne, said it was impossible now to determine how to replace the revenue raised through property taxes.
"We don't have the luxury of guessing, or saying we'll figure it out someday," he said, explaining the decision not to bring SJR 8 to a vote.
State Sen. Brent Waltz, R-Greenwood, along with Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis, sponsored the constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes only on homesteads.
All 12 members of the Senate Rules Committee signed on as co-sponsors for a different bill, Senate Bill 100, that creates a summer study to review property-tax elimination.
State Sen. Lindel Hume, D-Princeton, said he was disappointed that property-tax repeal wouldn't be brought to a vote this year.
"I'm in high hopes that (the study committee) does take place, and a report does come out, and the Legislature does act on it," Hume said.
The state now funds 85 percent of school operating costs and child-welfare costs. The remaining 15 percent is paid for with property taxes.
A key element of the Daniels plan, Senate Bill 1, would have the state assume 100 percent of those costs by 2010. Absorbing the local levies would cost the state about $2.7 billion. The full Senate voted unanimously to pass Senate Bill 1 and send it to the Indiana House.
The Senate also approved a debt-limitation bill that would require certain major local government and school capital projects to be approved in public referendums before they could go forward, if opponents initiated the process.
Unlike in the state Senate, which split the governor's plan into 14 pieces of legislation, the Indiana House is hearing Daniels' proposal as one massive bill, House Bill 1001.
Late Tuesday, House members were hearing 102 amendments to that bill. Originally scheduled to convene at 9 a.m. Tuesday, the Indiana House didn't start until after 5 p.m. EST, and was working late into the night.
Among those amendments, House Democrats approved changes that would exclude construction of school classrooms or laboratories from having to go before a public referendum. Auxiliary projects, such as stadiums and swimming pools, still would be subject to referendum, said state Rep. David Niezgodski, D-South Bend.
Democrats pushed through the amendment 50-44.
House members also passed other changes, such as keeping county-level assessors as an elected office, not an appointed position while still eliminating township-level assessors.
Meanwhile, the Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee Tuesday approved changes that would phase in Daniels' property-tax plan over two years, instead of all at once.
The Senate has not yet dealt with some Daniels proposals, such as stricter spending controls on local governments and increasing the state sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.