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Indiana Lawmakers from the statehouse to your house.

Mention the use of chairs and whips to maintain order, and you may well evoke thoughts of old school lion tamers.

The state house, of course, isn't a circus, but when it comes to that multi ring spectacle known as the Indiana General Assembly, the animal handler imagery is not without metaphorical value.

After all, the General Assembly is made up of a 150 strong willed characters, each with a distinct agenda, persona and constituency without a clearly defined leadership structure.

Chaos would almost certainly reign in the House of Representatives.

The undisputed ringmaster is the speaker every two years after Indiana's legislative elections.

House members choose one of their own to occupy this all important post.

Besides serving as the de facto leader of the Majority Caucus.

The speaker is the presiding officer of the House, meaning they manage the chambers formal proceedings.

The speaker also decides the makeup of legislative committees, appoints the chairs of those committees, and determines which committees will consider which bills on the other side of the statehouse rotunda.

The Senate doesn't have a speaker per se, but it does have a largely equivalent leadership position.

President Pro Tem technically, the lieutenant governor is the president or presiding officer of the Senate, but because they aren't an elected member of the chamber, the lieutenant governor votes only to break ties, and the president pro tem presides when the lieutenant governor is away.

Pro tem, of course, is a Latin phrase meaning for the time being.

But make no mistake.

In every sense that matters, the Senate's president pro tem calls the shots, assigning bills, appointing committees, and setting the chamber's overall agenda.

While the majority caucuses are electing their leaders, their partisan counterparts are doing likewise.

Enter the House and Senate minority leaders, although they lack the broad administrate of powers wielded by the Speaker and President pro tem, the minority leaders provide opposition to the majority party's policies.

Oh yeah, let's not forget the majority and minority whips along with their assistant whips.

And generally speaking, the whips are enforcers.

They pressure their caucus members to toe the party line.

The term derives from British foxhunting, where a so-called whipper in is responsible for keeping the hounds from wandering away from the pack.

See, there's just no getting around that animal handler imagery.

Long time viewers will know that we typically kick off each season of Indiana lawmakers by sitting down with the top leaders of the General Assembly.

We're starting this season with a special two part leadership conversation.

I am pleased to welcome House Speaker Todd Huston, a Fishers Republican.

House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta, a Fort Wayne Democrat.

Senate President Pro Tem Roderic Bray, a Martinsville Republican.

And Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, a Bloomington Democrat.

Thank you all for being here.

That'll teach you to say that we didn't give you enough time in the past.

Be careful.

You might be a three show special.

Not sure I remember saying that.

Jon.

(laughter) Well, we probably have it on paper or in the tape somewhere.

We'll look it up later.

there are going to be more than a thousand bills, in all likelihood, that are introduced this session.

And as I mentioned in the open, it's a dizzying array of topics that you'll, you know, daunting, historic, unprecedented.

Pick your pick your adjective.

The one thing, though, that you and your members have to do of course, is craft a two year state budget.

That's sort of everything else, in a way, is optional.

Now, I know that usually comes together like at 1159 on the day of signing day in April 29th, if we go that long.

You have an agenda, and I'm looking for those listening on.

Right.

I'm looking at House Republicans.

You all have an agenda.

Senate Republicans have an agenda.

And Mike Braun, the guy who's now occupying the governor's office, has an agenda.

Take me to that conference committee.

When when the the, differences are being worked out in that last 11th hour session.

How contentious, Todd Huston, will that be with these competing agendas in terms of the budget?

Well, first of all, if it's coming together at 11:00 on the last day of session, we got big a lot of concerns.

not the same.

A few things here.

not recently, though.

you know, I think it won't be that contentious.

So, first of all, great working relationships between, Senator Bray and myself, Chairman Thompson and Chairman Michler.

We look forward to working with, governor elect Braun and his team and, you know, you just kind of work through.

We each you're right.

We each have different priorities.

But most of the time, those priorities align.

And then you work together and and you know, what we always start with is the foundation, which is we're going to we are going to spend less than we take in, and we're going to have a structurally sound, honest budget.

And then you just have to prioritize resources.

And we just kind of work together to figure out among the, among the group to say, what are those things that are most important to us and how do we prioritize resources?

And obviously, you know, half the budgets in K-12.

So that's always going to be a a big topic of conversation.

But then, you know, looking across agencies and and initiatives, you just kind of work it out together.

And I feel really blessed that we have a group of people across the administration and across the two chambers who get along and work together on it.

Or on, that sounds pretty, pretty optimistic.

I looked at a comment you made, here in the in reference to the budget and the negotiations, and you said, well, one of the challenges is that everything the state does is and I think you use the word, you know, exorbitantly more expensive if they quote you directly.

Yeah.

It's, more expensive than it was even a year ago.

That's a complicating factor.

Are you as optimistic as your counterpart in the House?

Well, I'm optimistic about the process, for sure.

I mean, over the over the last few years when we worked on budgets, the speaker's team, my team and the governor's team of all worked together, we found it very effective to communicate, not just in the last day of the legislative session, but already they've been talking about what those priorities are.

And sure, there's differences of opinion.

Some of them are simply nuanced.

But, when you when you the communication really does help grease the wheel and make progress on it.

without a doubt, this year's budget is going to be challenging.

If you looked at the December forecast, there's a little bit of new money in, in the first year.

The second year is very complicated, about.

$700 million in the first year, something like that, to maybe 70 million, which.

Almost.

Is almost.

Almost nothing.

And who would have ever thought we'd say 70 million is almost nothing, but no point is going to take.

But but that's based on the size of our budget.

That's what that feels like.

And so, so without a doubt, there's going to be challenges there.

And we're going to have some difficult decisions to make.

But, as the speaker said, we work pretty smoothly together.

Governor elect Braun is putting together an effective team.

They are trying to learn as they go is and trying to put that their first budget together.

But, you know, we're going to base it obviously on, the December forecast.

And we're not going to spend more than we take in in any way, shape or form will reform that.

When we look at the April forecast and, we'll be able to tweak that a little bit and, we'll, we'll end on what those priorities are in due time.

And you read my mind about the April forecast, and that's, I hope I didn't offend you when I was talking about the 11th hour negotiations, but it let's call it the eighth or ninth hour, because really, we won't know for sure until that updated revenue forecast in mid-April.

Is that is that a fair assessment, do you think?

Shelli Yoder that is a fair assessment.

I think how you open this segment was talking about how everything costs more money.

And I know Hoosiers across the state are saying the same thing in their family budgets.

You know, things cost more money and it will be imperative.

And I know that the Indiana Senate Democrats are focused on making sure that we keep that in mind when we're talking about these cuts that we need to make to health care and to education and to every aspect of this budget.

In balancing a budget that we keep in mind how they impact families across the state, that's going to be first and foremost on the minds of Senate Democratic Caucus.

And I'm guessing some Hoosiers, an aunt, a Kelly School of Business lecture at IU, as you are, could still read the tea leaves in terms of what they're paying at the grocery store.

And at the gas.

Right.

And they're feeling it again.

What are we going to read the look at the tea leaves, the crystal ball.

Take me to the end of the session.

Are you going to be saying, okay, that budget worked out, or are you going to say, boy, we missed an opportunity?

Well, I will say that we do get updates monthly, so it doesn't just have to be the April forecast, obviously, that, something that's that has guided us in the past.

But we do get monthly updates and, we can take a look and see what March is going to tell us as well.

So, yeah, I, you know, your of your first question is, you know, what's the working relationship going to be between the leaders and the, the new, governor?

interesting.

You know, he's, one of us, comes from the house and, going to be the first time that that happened in a long time.

And I think he, you know, understands how, you know, how the process works.

And, I, I, take some comfort in knowing that, he was a school board member.

So he understands public education, important public education.

Former Democrat to that.

Give me some hope as well.

You just described everything about Tom Houston, except the Democrats are the school board.

Yes.

The House of Representatives.

And maybe that's the future for you.

I still have hope in the speaker, too.

but no, you know, look, we feel like we've got, a great team, and I will say, that, when I'm talking to representative Porter, in the past, you've worked with Chairman Thompson and, so we'll just continue to try to, you know, work hard and do the best.

We can.

Senator Yoder mentioned, though, that, we do need to keep, you know, Hoosiers in mind.

I talked a lot yesterday, with regards to, to the session and the the rising costs that, affecting our Hoosiers.

And I think our number one priority should be, you know what?

What can we do to, make Indiana more affordable place for for Hoosiers.

And you mentioned Representative Thompson for those who are keeping score, certainly chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, where the budget will start.

And I'm sure there will also be references, perhaps, to the counterpart in the Senate, Ryan Michler and his his committee, Senate appropriations, just to sort of talk about the process for one more, moment.

All right.

Overview.

Done.

Let's talk about some of the imperatives and challenges that are competing for a piece of that budgetary pie.

You mentioned, Todd Huston, that that k-through-12 education is still what used to be more than half now because of other factors, which I'm guessing we'll talk about.

It's not quite half, but still, it's the lion's share.

Nine plus billion dollars.

And that's a lot of money.

Even if it's 70 million wasn't nine 9 billion is I mean, the past, few session budget sessions, people have come away and saying, we're pleased to say that we gave historic increases to basic tuition support to K-12 public schools.

Is that possible this year to get an actual increase bill?

Actually, they're going to get more money.

I mean, you know, I, I would I would anticipate there will be more money in the k 12 formula.

Well increase.

But are you billion.

Is that are you factoring in private schools and vouchers and and.

Whatever young kids Jon I mean you know at the end of the day we fund in Indiana, we fund students in that $9 billion that we spend in K-12 education fund students.

And I would suspect, you know, I deal with the top line numbers, the numbers that, you know, that we spend on an annual basis, and that number will go up.

I'm pretty confident, unless we get a different August forecast.

Excuse me.

April forecast that that number will go up and it will be an increase for those schools that educate kids, per kid, per pupil will be up.

I get that the the top line, certainly.

But just so for sake of comparison, again, will we see that traditional tuition support public schools, traditional public schools?

I'm talking about those that are run by locally elected school boards, not charter schools, not vouchers, not schools that enroll students with vouchers?

Will that guaranteed be an increase?

Well.

Jon, I think that in fairness, I'm not sure I agree to question because at the end of the day, I mean, we fund students over school has more students than they did the year before.

Yes, will have more money.

If they have fewer students, they could potentially have less.

we fund students.

There'll be more money put into the school funding formula this year.

As I sit here today, will, I feel confident about that.

Maybe, God forbid, we don't have a very good April revenue forecast.

But but the fact of matter is, is, yes, there will be more money in the student funding formula funds.

The one point, you know, a little more than 1 million students across state of Indiana.

Well, I'm glad I introduced Ryan Michler a moment ago, for sake of discussion, because he's might be relevant to this question that I'll ask you this last year, he said he he said, let's let's stop with all these, you know, these programs, the vouchers have various names.

There's this scholarship program, this let's just let the dollars follow the student, let everybody k through 21 or, I mean, you know, basically gets a pot of money to use with as you see fit for education expenses.

Based on what I just heard Todd Huston say, that's that's a Michler model, if I may.

Is that am I misreading that?

Well, I mean, it's an Indiana model.

We've been doing that for a long time where the dollar follows the student and I think.

You're not in a formula fashion where you basically structure a whole program in that way.

As well.

I mean, if if a student is going to go to a public school and he or she switches from that public school to the next public school, the dollars are going to follow that child to the next public school.

If that child goes into a charter school, the money is going to leave that public school and go to the charter school.

And just like, and if they go to a private school that accepts vouchers, it'll it'll go there.

I mean, that's how that works.

To your question about, are we going to have more historic increases?

I don't know that I over for education overall.

I don't know if I have the answer for that at this point because we have to see how those numbers fall.

But to your point, we in 2019, I think we added 763 million new dollars to education, the 2021 budget, $1.1 billion.

And then in the 23 budget, it was more like $1.5 billion of new money to to the to the public education system.

So we are absolutely investing in that.

It's the most important, thing that the state does.

And that is reflected in the fact that it's far and away the largest budget item that we have.

but there are other things that are going to be pulling at that and other challenges that we have that we're going to have to contend with.

And, and we can maybe talk about it a little bit, but Medicaid is one of those things that's trying to be.

A give and take over.

Trying to take over a large chunk of the budget.

We're trying to make sure that that doesn't happen.

So we have money to spend on our children.

And in fact, we'll get to that.

That's one of your top 5 or 6 bills that you've already outlined to this notion of of the overall, pay attention to the top line for students is that does that sit well with your caucus?

Well, I heard Speaker Huston, and we hear this a lot.

We fund students, but I'd like to put a little twist on that or clarify that actually we are responsible for stewarding that taxpayer.

Hoosier taxpayers are funding this.

And we are stewards of that money.

And 90% of Hoosier parents kiddos are sent to public schools.

And so if we are being good stewards in the the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus is going to be focused on making sure that we are stewards of the Hoosier taxpayer dollars.

And if that many students are going to our public schools, we need to make sure that that investment is focused on our traditional public schools.

And additionally, if we're going to increase funding to those students going to private schools, we need to take a hard look at how we're going to fund pre-K, because if we're going to talk about the best investment, the return on investment for pre-K and early education, early childhood education, that's where the state and Hoosier taxpayers are going to get the best ROI.

Well, she just, talked about a message, a drumbeat that you've been sounding probably as long as you've been in your role, which is the notion kids get them in the classroom earlier.

You know, forget seven is the mandatory start date.

Six would be better.

Let's, even though there's a pilot, I guess not a pilot program when it's statewide with pre-K, it's not funded.

is that where this where the money should be?

The focus should be.

And how optimistic argue that that that we'll see any growth decision.

Yeah.

Well, as representative Porter and Delaney have pointed out as well, that when we talk about the funding that we've seen for education, including vouchers and charters, over the last ten years, it has not kept up with the, funding that for the previous ten years.

And what has that resulted in?

districts that have had to go around the tax cap.

So they've had to pass referendum, which means an increase in property taxes.

So we could have kept property taxes even lower if we would have been funding, education at the at appropriate, in my opinion, an appropriate level, frankly, to mirror how we, we did it for the previous ten years.

When you talk about pre-K, right now, I don't think you can qualify for any sort of pre-K if you make over $46,000 roughly in there.

And we're talking about now expanding the voucher program where you can make up toward, oh, well, it we're going to, you know, kind of blow the lid off the thing and work under percent of, make a million or whatever the number is going to be versus the amount that will be able to qualify, to go to parochial and just pre-K.

I mean, that's, you know, when we talk about how, we want to really invest in students, if we want to invest in and student going forward, we need to start at the pre-K level.

We don't have a robust pre-K program like we should have in the state.

And, all studies have Purdue and others have shown that, a really robust pre-K program.

we're getting kids in early.

They'll do so much better in third grade and on.

Can I go.

Ahead that pre-K program?

I've looked at a lot of those studies and I've read them closely.

And, I don't quite understand the studies in the way they show it, because it is intuitive to me that if you start a child earlier than they'll do a little bit better.

But when you read these studies, most of them show, of course, that there's a feed where the kids that don't go to school finally catch up to those children.

You know, most of those studies show that fade happens a second semester of their kindergarten year, and there's almost no evidence that academically, kids do better by going to pre-K.

I don't begin to understand that, but it's that's what the studies show.

And in fact, there's a study out of Vanderbilt that had about 3000 kids in it.

They followed them from pre-K through through their college years.

And in fact, the kids that went to pre-K, were less successful than the ones that did.

I don't understand why that is.

I'm very, very curious, but I think we just need to take a very hard look at that before we invest, millions and millions or billions of dollars of the state's money into that to make sure that we're getting the bang for our buck.

When, you know, schools, regardless of grade level, have relied heavily in recent years on referenda to generate additional, funds to to make up for gaps or to pursue programs, there is a push in the General Assembly as part of the the overall property tax relief push to maybe make it more difficult for schools to to ring that cash register.

You know, whether it's for requiring referenda to be during general elections, etc., etc.. Should schools be alarmed that that sort of relief or safety valve may be narrowing for them in terms of referenda?

No.

Look, I think there are a lot of us that believe that those referendums should be in the general election when.

People.

Are when people are actually voting, in larger numbers.

I don't think I've seen any proposals to say we're going to take away referendums.

just just put them a times in which the voters are there's a larger percentage of people going to vote.

And this notion of property tax relief that certainly one of Mike Braun's he ran on that that's that's going to be front and center and that's front and center in the Senate.

Republican plan.

Several of the bills are alarm bells going off, on the Democratic side of the aisle about school referenda or other sorts of whether it's schools or local governments that might feel the squeeze, and have to rely on their own built in taxing capacity in terms of in their income tax ability to tax it, should they be alarmed?

Are you alarmed?

I know that, Mike.

The Senate Democratic Caucus is listening to Hoosiers, and we are hearing from them that property taxes are becoming more and more challenging, especially for particular populations, vulnerable populations, older adults on fixed incomes, our veterans, we could even say our farmers, the way that they're land is, appraised and how they pay property taxes.

What can you do not I mean, if if absolutely everybody.

Which is really important is that we can take a very close and careful look at the way that property taxes are, created and make sure that those who need the help, we can get them to help, but not put an extra burden on the very people that are already crying out.

Because we have heard from economists throughout the state saying that the current plan could put an extra burden just reallocating those dollars elsewhere.

And those communities, our rural communities and our urban communities are going to suffer the most.

It's going to be a very difficult conversation.

But the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus is very aware that we need to be talking about property taxes, but how we do it, that's going to be the important conversation.

Of course, the General Assembly created a task force that looked at the issue of overall tax policy for two years, came up with some suggestions that may or may not be incorporated into what we see this session.

How do you give relief without squeezing locals?

Good question.

And it's, it little complicated, you know, when it comes to and obviously, you know, I think probably 70, 75% of most city budgets are directed toward police and fire.

and so we, you know, don't want to make sure that we're not, hurting local government and with their jobs they have to do to make sure to keep their communities safe.

you know, the the we've seen, rising, valuations, maybe we need to we've, we've talked security and I've talked about, finding we need more housing.

we have, can we as are there ways to incentivize folks to, go in and look into a community where we have we used to have blighted areas.

We tore down old houses.

Now we have vacant lots.

Can we we just need more housing, I think would, help and lower the, you know, the housing costs that way as well.

So, you know, like another budget item, though I understand I understand that, but it all relates to that.

You're talking about property taxes, too.

And and I think, frankly, if we're going to do anything with regards to property tax, that we should for sure give relief, to those folks that are 65 and older, that's more important to me all the time.

Not yet, but it's going to be very important eventually they to, you know, the, no discussion about dollars and cents and the fiscal policy would be complete this session, especially about Medicaid.

which one of you mentioned a moment ago that is the fastest growing part of the budget?

and it was complicated by a miscalculation last year of $1 billion about how much the state's tab would be.

And there have been efforts to to fix that.

Todd Huston, now your budget priorities have not come out.

And I know that your colleague here on the Senate side, that is a one of his formal priorities.

But, are you basically going to sign on.

The two things?

John, I just want to go back to property tax conversation real quick.

I do want to say that people have to remind themselves the state of any, gets $0 from property taxes.

So this is all about the local units of government.

And we have a part to play in this.

But they have the ultimate responsibility and will be, you know, we're we're completely conscious of that.

They're the ones who deliver the services.

But it's it's the money is collected at the local level, a state and local level.

We're going to have to find the right balance on all that on Medicaid.

Look, we have a like every state.

This is a huge challenge.

I mean, that that section of that portion of the budget grows, astronomically faster than any, revenue source that can come in to replace it.

So, you know, I think, Senator Michler or Chairman Thompson, and a bunch of others are looking at how do we put the appropriate guardrails.

We understand, and it's incredibly important these folks, many of these people are the most vulnerable in society.

and we need to walk the path to make sure they have the supports that they're needed.

But we need to support the the folks who actually need this and who actually and providing the services are actually necessary.

Probably.

Again, these are some of the bills that are your caucus priorities.

And you basically limit it to 500,000.

The number of people on the Healthy Indiana plan, I think they're now 680,000 people.

They'd have to find insurance elsewhere, also a 36 month lifetime cap in terms of benefits and participation in the program.

palatable.

And, is that going to work?

Well, there's some difficult decisions there.

But keep in mind, again, to the idea that this is the fastest growing item in the budget.

In the 23 budget, it went from 16% of the budget to 19% of the of the budget.

And that was before we realized there was a $984.

million million dollar missed part of the forecast.

So it is, so it's astronomically faster growing than anything else that we have.

And so we've got to we've got to make sure that we, preserve it for the people that need it.

But we also need to preserve those state dollars for other things like public education, as we discussed.

So I think what you'll see is, when you talk about getting people off that program, you know, the Healthy Indiana plan is, is income based.

And, if people grow out of that and have a higher income, they need to be taken off that program.

So we need to make sure we execute it with fidelity.

All right.

Believe it or not, we're out of time.

we'll have to leave it there for now.

But as I noted at the outset of our discussion, you can tune in next week for a continuation of my conversation with the General Assembly's top leaders.

On the next Indiana lawmakers.

And time now for our weekly conversation with Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of the newsletter Indiana Legislative Insight, part of Hannah News Service.

The governor, the new governor, Mike Braun.

What would he have thought about the conversation and the positions outlined by leaders in the General Assembly?

I'm not going to speak for a new governor, Jon.

I've.

I've been through you and I have been through and reported on eight different governors now over the the decades and and he will be another one and there will be more after him and there will be more people reporting after us.

But what what's interesting about Governor Braun is that he he will come in, having been a member of the House is, as leaders, eloquent and pointed out, he'll be the first former House member who have served as governor since Otis Bowen.

We did have another legislator, Frank O'Bannon, who had been, a state senator, but he'll come in with an understanding of the process.

But at the same time, he's a businessman who who ran a business and was very unhappy as a legislator in the in both the Indiana House and in the US Senate.

He wants to lead.

And it's going to be a fun process to watch, to see to what extent the legislature works with him, when he might think that they work for him.

Interesting point.

Well, let me let me ask you a question.

A version of what I ask them.

You know, let's look into the future four months from now, that final budget negotiations and conference committee.

How contentious will it be?

Given what you just said.

Everything's going to focus on Medicaid.

They've got to cut Medicaid to meet the budget.

Medicaid.

Medicaid, Medicaid.

All right, Ed, as always, appreciate your insight.

Thank you.

Jon.

Well, that concludes another edition of Indiana Lawmakers.

Until next week.

Take care.

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