Evansville Courier & Press staff and wire reports
INDIANAPOLIS - Legislative sessions often end with a flurry of activity as lawmakers scramble to hammer out compromises on major - and sometimes contentious - proposals. But this year, a single issue is the focus of intense negotiations as the session nears its midnight Friday deadline.
"We've been focused on the property tax issue even before we came into session," said Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, who heads the Senate Tax Committee. "I think it's only realistic to think, with the complexity of that issue, that it's going to be the dominant thing right up to the end."
"Whenever there's anything substantial that involves the whole state - like this property tax bill - it's usually the last days of the session when it gets done because there are a lot of interests that have to be balanced," Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, said.
Gov. Mitch Daniels mingled with dozens of taxpayers outside his Statehouse office Tuesday, telling them lawmakers were very close to reaching a late-session compromise on property tax relief and reform.
"We are very, very close. I really do believe we are," Daniels told the group from Delaware County, where increases in homeowner bills last year averaged 37 percent.
Kenley said later Tuesday that Republican and Democrat negotiators might be close to a compromise.
Although the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-ruled Senate each passed bills earlier this session that included some key components of Daniels' plan, House Democrats introduced a proposal last week that contained some significant departures from it.
House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said negotiators were making progress "one step at a time."
Many of the taxpayers who visited the Statehouse on Tuesday wore shirts that said, "Delaware County Taxes - It's Like a Hole in Your Head." They said they were suffering from high tax bills and needed relief, and Daniels said they deserved it.
Daniels had a one-on-one conversation with Joseph Branson, 40, of Yorktown.
"We're hurting. We're hurting in Delaware County and we need your help," Branson told the governor.
The governor urged the group to take its lobbying to the third floor of the Statehouse where the Legislature meets, which it eventually did.
"Go get their votes. Those are the votes that are needed," he said. Daniels encouraged the group to be "forceful but positive in your advocacy."
"The vast majority of these (legislators) really do want to help property taxpayers and really do want to get this problem addressed, so what they need is sort of positive reinforcement, and you're just the folks to do it," the governor said.
Lawmakers also are dealing with other issues during this year's short legislative session. Some already have passed and are on the way to the governor's desk; others are stalled in final negotiations.
Lawmakers are close to reaching a compromise on legislation that could replace County Commissioners with a single county executive if voters approve the reorganization in a referendum.
And the Senate agreed Tuesday to changes on a bill inspired by the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Homeless Youth Council. Authored by state Rep. Dennis Avery, D-Evansville, House Bill 1165 would order a count of Indiana's homeless youth and lift some of the regulatory and legal barriers that prevent homeless runaways under age 18 from receiving services from shelters.
The Senate passed the compromise bill 44-3.
If the House passes it, then the bill goes to the governor's desk.