As deadline nears, Indiana lawmakers push for solutions on major bills, issues

What’s left is determining which taxes to reduce.

The political question du jour is just how close lawmakers will get to giving Republican Gov. Mike Pence the 10 percent reduction in Indiana’s income tax rate that he has made the centerpiece of his first-year legislative agenda.

That proposal is competing with an already-in-place corporate income tax, a phase-out of Indiana’s inheritance tax, and a financial institutions tax that lawmakers hope to reduce.

The total package, said House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, will be worth $500 million per year. As for its composition, “that’s still under discussion,” Bosma said.

Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, identified the tax cut as the final piece of the budget for lawmakers to hammer out. He and Bosma indicated they are near agreement on funding for K-12 education and transportation, the two other big-ticket budgetary items.

“On almost all the large issues, we’re having movement,” Long said.

The two legislative leaders were guarded in their comments Wednesday, knowing that they had the day and Thursday’s early hours to make deals in order to allow lawmakers 24 hours to read bills before casting their votes.

“We’re trying to come to a positive conclusion on all of it. Our priorities are clearly education funding – public school education funding and road funding. The Senate is very much so aligned with that, and the governor has stepped in that direction, as well,” Bosma said.

Details on a host of other important measures – education and transportation funding, the future of the Rockport coal-to-gas plant, an expansion of Indiana’s two-year-old private school voucher program and more – still needed sorting out, as well.

“There are a lot of things that are in flux still,” Bosma said.

The answers are all expected to come by Friday night, when majority Republicans say they plan to wrap up their business and adjourn for the year.

Among the other issues that legislative leaders are still trying to hammer out:

EDUCATION: House negotiators were pushing their Senate colleagues to broaden the scope of a measure that would expand the state’s voucher program, and top negotiators on both sides said they were close to a deal.

Meanwhile, Bosma said lawmakers will hit the “pause button” on Common Core State Standards, launching a study before schools further implement those standards that were developed by states and are supported by President Barack Obama’s administration.

And the two chambers’ education chairmen – Rep. Robert Behning, R-Indianapolis, and Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn – said they had a plan to revamp Indiana’s A-through-F grading scale for schools, as well.

CASINOS: Evansville’s Casino Aztar could get permission to move onto the land it already owns under a gambling bill that House and Senate negotiators said they were close to finalizing.

Lobbyists for the state’s two horse track-casino combination “racinos” in Anderson and Shelbyville were still trying to get permission to allow live table games at their locations, but Pence has rejected that idea.

ROCKPORT: Top House and Senate leaders were meeting Wednesday to hammer out the final details of a bill they plan to present during a 10 a.m. Thursday conference committee meeting. According to lawmakers involved in the discussions, the bill would likely send the Rockport project back to utility regulators for a binding review.