INDIANAPOLIS - Indiana lawmakers emerged Thursday afternoon from the first conference committee meeting of this year's General Assembly session promising a bipartisan effort to reach a compromise to fix Indiana's bankrupt unemployment insurance fund.
However, the lawmakers offered no hints what the deal they're attempting to broker will look like.
The end-of-session committees are created to hash out differences between bills that emerge from the House and Senate.
This committee is attempting to negotiate a plan to shore up a fund that is already at least $620 million in the red and relying on federal government loans to remain solvent. Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on how to do that, but they have until only April 29 to cut a deal.
Republicans want to raise taxes on employers, cut jobless benefits, tighten eligibility restrictions and turn down federal stimulus funding that would provide extra money, but also expand benefits to more people.
Democrats want to raise employers' taxes higher than Republicans are calling for, maintain current benefits and accept more than $140 million in stimulus funds.
"Everybody isn't going to like what we do here," said Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, who co-chairs the committee alongside Rep. David Niezgodski, D-South Bend. "Hopefully we can all have a little give and take and have something that is acceptable to all sides of this issue."
Lines in the sand
Democrats did draw some lines in the sand Thursday. Niezgodski and Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage, said cutting benefits is "unacceptable" in an economy that has produced 9.4 percent unemployment in Indiana.
Thursday's meeting came on the heels of a Department of Labor report that showed Indiana's unemployment agency, the Department of Workforce Development, could be contributing to the unemployment fund's debt.
The agency was responsible for 11.2 percent of improper benefits payouts in 2007 because it did not check its case-load against the National Directory of New Hires.
That figure is much higher than the 2.3 percent national average, according to the report.