Senate Democrats Top 10 ways for improving proposed state budget
1. Add more job creation.
2. Establish a more equitable school funding formula (One more favorable to Gary and other districts with declining enrollment.)
3. Continue allowing schools to use 3.5 percent of their property-tax backed capital projects fund to pay insurance and utility bills.
4. Eliminate a proposed $5 million scholarship tax credit for private schools.
5. Don't link university funding to student performance, including graduation rates.
6. Restore $1.1 million cut to public broadcasting and continue $3.5 million annual subsidy.
7. Provide $14 million to complete Little Calumet River levees (GOP budget offers $9 million).
8 Restore proposed $1 million cut to adult education program and increase annual funding by $4 million, to $18 million a year.
9 Make permanent sales tax exemption for low-income heating assistance (Annual cost of $7 million).
10. Remove budget language allowing governor to not spend state appropriations.
By Patrick Guinane, Times of Northwest Indiana
patrick.guinane@nwi.com
INDIANAPOLIS | Restoring funding cuts Gov. Mitch Daniels made to Lakeshore Public Television and other public broadcasting stations has made Senate Democrats' "Top 10" list for improving the proposed state budget.
Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville, on Monday said Democrats want to reverse a $1.1 million cut the Republican governor ordered last year and continue funding PBS radio and TV stations at $3.5 million a year. Daniels proposed eliminating the annual subsidy while a Senate Republican budget plan would cut it half.
Simpson called the cuts "suspicious" and said the PBS stations are "an independent news voice that needs to continue to be heard."
Slashing the PBS subsidy by roughly a third was among "many difficult decisions" Daniels announced in December in hopes of keeping the state budget in balance with annual tax collections projected to plummet by more than $760 million.
Thomas Carroll, president and chief executive officer of Lakeshore Public Television, said the move cost the station about $110,000. The station subsequently reduced staff by 10 percent by laying off six employees and not filling four vacant posts, he said.
"When the state just flat out says, 'We're not going to pay you,' that's wrong," Carroll said. "We're the only source of (local) television here."
Dewey Pearman, a Lakeshore Public Television board member, outlined similar concerns in an April 9 letter to Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Odgen Dunes.
"Lakeshore's nightly newscast, Lakeshore News Tonight, is the only local television newscast in Northwest Indiana, an area of the state dominated by Chicago news programs," Pearman wrote. "It is critical that Lakeshore's reporting of news from Northwest Indiana and around the state continue to inform area residents of news affecting their lives."
Carroll said the $310,000 a year Lakeshore Public Television receives from the state helps leverage grants and donations to buoy the station's roughly $3.9 million annual budget.
© Copyright 2024, nwitimes.com, Munster, IN