Dobis turns down South Shore expansion money match

BY PATRICK GUINANE, Times of Northwest Indiana
pguinane@nwitimes.com

INDIANAPOLIS | State Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville, turned down $175 million in state funding for South Shore expansion because the last-minute deal would have required a local tax hike.

Senate Tax Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, made the offer to help underwrite the $1 billion plan to extend commuter rail lines to Lowell and Valparaiso during a private meeting Wednesday night.

"I told him, 'Chet, the governor is going to be real generous here. If you guys will go out and raise $15 million (a year), he'll match it for you,'" Kenley recalled Thursday. "You need to either raise it through a local tax. Or if your local business people want to pay a share, just show us the money, and we'll do a fair-share match."

But in a legislative session dominated by property tax relief efforts, Dobis couldn't bring himself to push another tax on Lake and Porter counties.

"Nobody wants to vote for a tax right now," Dobis said.

County income taxes or a food and beverage sales tax appeared to be the most pliable options for a local funding source. The South Shore expansion needs $350 million in state or local money to match $500 million in anticipated federal funds and $150 million from the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority.

Dobis originally authored legislation to plug the $350 million shortfall by diverting $30 million a year in state sales tax money collected in Lake and Porter counties. But Kenley told him the region needed to put more "skin in the game."

"There's a difference of opinion on the definition of 'skin in the game,'" Dobis said. "Skin in the game to me is the $150 (million) that we're contributing of our local resources that come from gaming and go to the RDA. That's a whole lot of skin."

Kenley gutted Dobis' South Shore bill last month and inserted provisions steering the funding debate to a summer study committee.

The study legislation has been sitting on Dobis' desk for two weeks now. Dobis said he will ask the House to accept the Senate's changes today, the final day of this year's legislative session.