By Eric Bradner, Evansville Courier & Press
INDIANAPOLIS - All four conferees have signed off and the compromise budget is finalized. The Indiana House is expected back in less than an hour to begin debate ahead of a vote that will come this evening.
Though Republicans are lined up behind the spending plan negotiators have hashed out over the last few days, Democrats were holed up this morning, huddling in closed-door meetings with the Indiana State Teachers' Association.
But members of all four caucuses - House majority Democrats and minority Republicans, and Senate majority Republicans and minority Democrats - now say their work is done.
The final bill is now being printed and distributed to lawmakers.
As tonight's deadline draws near, state lawmakers expect to vote later today on a compromise budget in hopes of averting a government shutdown.
If they don't approve, and Gov. Mitch Daniels doesn't sign, a new budget before the current spending plan expires at midnight, much of Indiana's government would be forced to close for lack of funding.
"The prospect of not finishing on June 30 was distasteful to everyone," said Senate President Pro Tempore David Long, R-Fort Wayne. "I think the public expects you to get it done."
Here's a look at some of the details of the compromise budget, according to Senate leaders:
SIZE: The budget would cover the traditional two-year span, from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2011, and spend $27.8 billion over that time period.
K-12 EDUCATION: Public schools would see, on average, a 1 percent spending boost the first year and a 0.3 percent increase the second year. That's less than what Democrats wanted, but $54 million more than Senate Republicans included in their final budget. Bauer said it should help schools dodge mass teacher layoffs.
HIGHER EDUCATION: Funding for Indiana's public colleges and universities, including the University of Southern Indiana, would remain essentially flat because federal stimulus money would fill in spending cuts.
OTHER EDUCATION ISSUES: The spending plan does not include any sort of moratorium or cap on charter schools - a concession Democrats made to Republicans. It also includes a pilot program for virtual charter schools.
STADIUM BOARD: Indianapolis would be allowed to raise some local taxes to help close the $47 million deficit faced by its Capital Improvement Board, which runs the city's professional sports stadiums and convention center.
SURPLUS: If state revenue forecasts are accurate, the compromise would leave $1 billion of the state's $1.3 billion reserves in the bank at the end of the biennium - a piece that meets Daniels' demand that at least that much be left over.
TRIGGER: The budget will include a mechanism that would direct large portions of any state revenue above what a fiscal committee projected last month toward education.
Other issues - such as whether USI will gain bonding authority for a new teaching theater and whether a $300,000 Chicago-to-Evansville passenger rail study will make the final cut - remain unclear. Those details will become available later today.
The compromise is all but certain to win passage in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 33-17 majority. Whether it will gain approval in the House, which Democrats control 52-48, is less certain.
House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said he would put the plan up for a vote Tuesday, but "whether it succeeds or not is another story." He signaled most Republicans must vote yes for the budget to have a chance.
"This is a very Republican-flavored bill," he said late Monday. "They've made some adjustments, but if you're at the flavor of the other party, they've got to help pay for the drink."
House Minority Leader Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, said that shouldn't be a problem. He said he believes most of his caucus will support the compromise budget.
Democratic legislators said they were waiting to see how the school funding formula would affect individual districts. They've argued that the Republican philosophy that money should be divvied up on a per-pupil basis is flawed and would badly hurt urban and rural schools where enrollment is declining and help is needed most.
"A lot of it's going to come down to school runs and higher education," said Rep. Kreg Battles, D-Vincennes.
"It's not about the amount of money, it's how it's allocated," said Rep. Trent Van Haaften, D-Mount Vernon.
Earlier this week, how a shutdown would affect Southwest Indiana offices and businesses began to come into focus.
State police would remain on the job and prisons would remain in operation. The Indiana National Guard, the state Department of Homeland Security and the state Board of Health will be on standby. But nearly everything else would shut down.
Most of the state's more than 30,000 employees would be furloughed.
State license branches would close, making tasks such as renewing driver's licenses and plates impossible.
Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Andy Miller and state police officials are meeting. But at this point, BMV officials say the answers to questions such as which laws would be enforced is unknown.
"I think people are hoping it doesn't come to that," said Graig Lubsen, the BMV's deputy communications director.
Casinos won't be allowed to operate without state regulators overseeing them, meaning Casino Aztar would be forced into a hiatus.
Robert "Tom" Dingman, an attorney-in-fact who has been in charge of Casino Aztar since last year, said it is difficult to prepare for the consequences of state government shutting down since no one seems certain just what those consequences will be.
Dingman said Aztar managers have spoken to representatives of the Indiana Casino Association about the possible effects of a shutdown but haven't gained a clear picture of what to expect.
One certainty, though, is that the prospect of a shutdown couldn't come at a worse time.
"This is the Fourth of July weekend coming up, which is one of our better weekends," Dingman said. "Everybody hopes that it's not going to happen. Everybody wants a budget, and everybody wants the state to continue to run."
Though schools rely on state funding, unlike state agencies, they wouldn't face immediate consequences. Summer school would stay open and teachers would continue to receive pay.
Marsha Jackson, a spokeswoman for the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp., said the district could use its cash reserves and then reimburse those backup bank accounts when a budget does pass.
"We could continue to operate as we do now for a short period of time," she said, adding that she's not sure exactly how long reserves would last. "If (the budgetary stalemate) went on for a long time, then that would be another matter."
At Lincoln State Park in Spencer County, the public could be shut out over a holiday weekend in the peak of parks season.
Eyes at the park's Lincoln Amphitheatre are on what's in the budget, as well as whether it will pass.
Its "Lincoln" stage production would have received $550,000 in state support in the House Democrats' one-year, $14.5 billion budget. The Senate Republicans' two-year, $28.5 billion budget set aside $440,000 for the production. But Daniels' budget completely cut its funding.
"We're working our hardest on fundraising here on this end," said Lincoln Amphitheatre's communications director, Laura Barker. "But if we don't get folks out here to support us - get butts in the seat - then we'd have no other option but to close."
She said though the amphitheater hopes for the full $550,000 funding, the Senate version would be a "huge help - much better than nothing."
Alan January, the director of patron services for the Indiana State Archives, said the last time there hasn't been a budget was 1863.
Civil War-era Gov. Oliver Morton, a Republican, decided to use private funding to keep state government up and running for two years, rather than call the Democratic-led General Assembly back for a special session.
"There were bitter political differences between the two sides," he said.
Staff writer Dan Shaw and the Associated Press contributed to this report.