A new Utility Consumer Counselor.

Child care cuts.

Plus studying, moving municipal elections and more.

From the televisions studios at WFYI, it's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending September 5th, 2025.

Indiana Week In Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations.

This week, Indiana has a new utility consumer counselor after governor Mike Braun appointed Abby Gray to the position.

The utility consumer counselor represents Hoosier consumers in rate cases at the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and in legal cases.

Gray has more than 30 years of experience in utility regulation.

And in appointing her governor, Braun says he is directing her office to evaluate utilities profits along with other costs saving measures to, quote, ease the burden on ratepayers.

Braun also has the opportunity to reshape the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

Two of its five members announced this week they will step down next month, and a third commission members term expired earlier this year, allowing Braun to appoint a majority of VRC.

Can Mike Braun help bring down Hoosiers utility bills?

It's the first question for our Indiana Week interview panel.

Political strategist Elise Schrock.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

Jon Schwantes, host of Indiana Lawmakers.

And Whitney Downard, senior reporter for the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting Statehouse bureau chief Brandon Smith.

Mike, how much of an impact can the Braun administration make through these roles?

A significant one, I mean, it's a highly regulated industry.

that the IUAC and the, the OUCC, have control over.

Right.

And there's and there's a balance that needs to be that needs to be struck there.

between.

Yeah.

We're not we've talked a lot about energy generation capacity transmission in the last couple of years.

and we're in a, we're in a growth era.

We're at the end of we don't build power plants in a year.

They don't last for five years.

They last for half a century.

Right.

And we're in we're in this period of, demand for more generation, for construction.

and all those things cost money.

and so keeping an eye on the ratepayer is really important.

balancing that off with expanding capacity, because we have growing, you know, business needs and, a growing population, all those things are all those things are important.

So the broad administration's focus on this is like, exactly right.

This is a great hire.

the last guy was pretty good.

So congrats to congrats to him to, on a well-deserved retirement.

but yeah, I mean, they there needs to be attention on this because of the because they're, we're in small nuclear reactors, retiring coal plants.

The whole conversation requires really good people like Abby.

So Braun can have an impact.

Will he have an impact?

Well, and that's a great question because, well, I, I agree he's appointed someone who is an expert in this field with a long tenure in utility regulation.

However, the policy is set by the legislature, and that's where the real difficulty is going to be, because you have to, you have a legislature that, has been tilted towards utilities over the last decade, and we're in an affordability crisis for consumers, and we're seeing more and more consumers and consumer advocacy groups.

coming to the forefront.

I mean, we've had consumer advocacy groups, raising the alarm bell, alarm bell on this for a while now.

I mean, all the way back in 2013 with the passage of Senate Bill 560. but this affordability crisis is going to take that tension that you're speaking about and really pull it quite tightly.

And I'm not sure we have a legislature.

Sure.

That's going to allow someone who is even an expert in this field, advocate for consumers in the way that they should be.

What's this is really studied this.

I mean, they've spent a lot of time like focused on on this part and but it it is a balance.

We've had Eric Cook and Ed Solid a couple of the chairs in both utility committees that have been like laser focused on affordability but also creating creating generation to respond to economic growth.

Well that but that's what we hear from the legislature.

The utilities, by signing day.

And that's where we don't.

Need any deference to the utilities is interpreted as did they get what they wanted in terms of being able to pay for what they're building and whenever that happens, it's considered a criticism of the use of of the utility at the expense of the ratepayer.

One thing that I feel like we hear the legislature say a lot and that that that refrain has been louder as we've had these data centers coming in and we recognize they're going to require a lot of, energy is we got to make sure we have enough power because they don't want to see what happens in states like Texas where you have these brownouts anytime there's, a rainstorm, it feels like, is that what's stopping the legislature from maybe taking a slightly more critical eye on what utilities are charging ratepayers?

Yeah, I want I want to mention the context here is that, you know, as much as Governor Brown wants to have this impact, there are a lot of challenges up against him with this aging infrastructure that, like Mike said, we have to pay to replace if we want it to be more efficient and still working because it's all getting old.

And then we also have those power hungry data centers.

So and this is a nationwide trend.

And that's why we're seeing these double digit increases all across the country.

Because this is just something that every state has to wrestle with right now.

And there's just not enough power out there.

Indiana was at one time in the not, that distant past, a leader in energy prices in terms of how low they were, compared to other states.

We are now among some of the worst states in terms of energy prices, with the with the property tax, issue at least subdued for now, we'll see the bill go into place.

People's bills should get lower next year, or at least not be jumping up nearly as high.

Will the sort of drumbeat conversation at the state House be?

What about my utility?

I do think that utility bills have a chance to become the property tax crisis of 2026 and beyond, and we already have seen some of that in the past few sessions where people were, yes, they were sounding alarms about property taxes, but we I know we oftentimes heard from groups that were saying, hey, just as important, folks, is rising utility costs because it is hitting us hard.

And it's also something, you know, you see your property tax bill once, twice a year.

You see that utility bill every single month.

Last summer we ever had.

And you know, and it's hitting people like their kitchen table issues.

Right.

They're always front and center.

And you're right it's a recurring issue.

You can't you can't really put it off.

Certainly not for more than a month.

If you want to keep keep having that problem.

Disconnect notices in Indianapolis at least were higher than they have usually been, and which.

Stands to reason again, and I do think, we are better off in some states.

I think you're right.

This is a national problem.

This is not an Indiana problem.

And we're probably poised we're positioned better than a lot of other states to address these problems.

And I have some confidence, a good deal of confidence, actually, in the members of the General Assembly who focus on this issue, because these are not the Johnny come lately to this issue or reactionary.

Now, for the people you mentioned and other senators and House members, they take this very seriously.

I mean, they read through and study up on the stuff that none of us would want to spend more than five minutes with.

and so they take this seriously.

And, yes, the resiliency of the grid, the they've taken that seriously.

They don't always agree with utilities.

There was a moratorium on, on that forced utilities, investor owned utilities a few years back to pause some of the things they wanted to do because of concerns about moving too fast toward renewables.

So, yes, they they're I wouldn't say it's a rubber stamp necessarily.

The General Assembly, for the state, it's been a cautious General Assembly in terms of not wanting to repeat what we've seen in Texas and other places where brownouts are now, I guess we should say gray outs.

But the new, the new utility commissioner being gray, we'll we'll chat.

I hope we don't have that here.

No, no.

Hey, come on, if I can have fun with a with a commissioner's last name, what can I do?

All right.

The Indiana family and Social Services, the Indiana family and social Services Administration is cutting voucher reimbursement rates for the Child Care and Development Fund.

Indiana Public Broadcasting's Timoria Cunningham reports the agency says the cuts are meant to address a $225 million funding gap.

Adam Allison is with the FSSA Office of Early Childhood and out of school learning.

He says the previous administration over enroll children in the state's CCDF program, a state administered federal program that provides financial support to low income families for child care.

He says as a result of over enrollment, the prior administration used temporary Covid relief funding without a sustainable plan, leaving FSSA to choose between slashing reimbursement rates for providers or removing children from the program.

We've regrettably had to make a a tough but necessary decision to prioritize children over childcare providers.

In a statement opposing the cuts, Democratic Representative Carrie Hamilton says they will cause working families to choose between their job or staying at home with their children.

Elise Shrock, given what they say is the funding gap.

Was this the best move the state could make in this situation?

No.

I think acting like, where is this money?

We don't have this money.

After asking FSSA during the budget writing cycle to cut their budget 5% once across the board and then 5% again, and then wondering why you don't have money for things like this is a manufactured crisis.

And it's we do have money.

It's about priorities in the budget.

And I would argue that child care, infrastructure and investing in it is really critical to quality of life.

women and people of color with young children are the backbone of our workforce.

And what we're seeing now, at least nationally, is a trend where women are leaving the workforce.

Between January and June, hundreds of thousands of women have left the workforce that is not good for quality of life in communities.

These are choices.

you know, I agree with Representative Hamilton when she said you're making people largely women and black women are affected way, much more disproportionately on this decide between a job and child care.

Yes, it's a hard choice, but it's a policy choice that we are making.

It is a moral misalignment in our budget priorities.

When we're giving money to private school vouchers, when we're making tax cuts for people who, okay, it can help a bit, but the significant help that it could provide, like a CCDF voucher could provide, is exponentially, could be exponentially greater and then could be greater for the community as a whole.

This is an infrastructural failure.

We've seen this before from the Braun administration.

particularly in like the health care side of things, is an easy path going, well, the last guy screwed it up.

Oh.

I mean, yeah.

always so.

Right.

So, but look, I mean, I don't disagree with anything that Elise has said.

but we talked about this two weeks ago.

We're going to talk about two weeks from now on, some other population and some other program that has grown beyond what we can sustain.

I mean, we have a we have an aging population.

We've been nursing a population where the cost is going to go up 100% in the next three years.

So we're going to be back talking about that.

and, and you're right, it is it is a matter of priorities.

But there's a lot of priorities.

K-12 education is a priority.

You know, corrections is a priority.

And the big buckets in the budget that are ballooning out of control financially are are a problem.

We talked two weeks ago about disabled kids and getting out of their facilities and like how beneficial that is, but not being able to afford it.

It's like, okay, well it is about priorities.

And within the Medicaid program it is about priority is about prioritizing the sickest.

The pregnant moms, the kids, the things that that that program was, you know, originally designed to help, and it's I don't know the answer other than legislators are looking at this going and regulators in the ministration look at us going, we can't afford anything else if we keep doing this.

And and I and I know it and it hurts and the politics of it suck and but I don't know what the answer is or dealing with it more and more and more in the legislature and in the administration.

But it's also exasperated by policies set forth by someone like the Trump administration that's cutting programs like Head Start.

And then you have a governor that's like, yeah, I'm lockstep with this president to make sure we're cutting things and doesn't see a problem with that.

It exasperates our ability to do things like provide CCDF vouchers.

So rather than making the politically advantageous comment like that, we need leaders who are going to think through this and fight for us and fight for our working families.

Jon, it feels like and I think I've asked this question several weeks ago when we were talking about another childcare issue, when we were talking about more child care cuts, it feels like the state of Indiana now as a policy is just saying, listen, you can't really rely on the government for child care in most cases that it has to be.

There's also somebody else that's.

Also cut the rates.

It didn't cut.

It didn't it didn't take people out of the program.

Well no.

But by this from providers.

Right.

Well but that's the problem is if we're cutting the rates, there might be some providers who go, I'm out of it.

I'm out there maybe.

And so now you have an access problem.

So you're essentially so you might not be cutting the voucher for the for the family, but there's nowhere for them that cut that.

But there's families like this.

Is the state of Indiana just not not getting into the into the child care.

I think that would be an exaggeration.

I think and hope that that would be hyperbole.

But but there are these, significant competing priorities.

this one, though, I think is a little different from I mean, every constituent group that benefits from one of these groups says the mind is the one that matters for understandable reasons.

This one, though, and we've touched on this, if you look at it in terms of the ripple effect.

And, this does have it doesn't just affect the people who are getting vouchers or diminished value vouchers.

It's a notion of economic development.

It's people in the workforce.

It's so if you don't have people in the workforce, then you know, that has an effect on the care of the children.

I mean, it's it's, whether you have food on the table, you you mentioned a moment ago about children being a priority.

Well, in a way, this is a priority because it's the well-being and livelihood of the family structure that supports those children.

you know, we all throw around the word crisis, and I've used it a couple of times, probably today.

And the General Assembly will, often cite crisis.

But I do think childcare crisis is, if not a crisis, it's a it's a very tall hurdle that we must clear as a state to take.

Well, as, as you used to some of the campaign, phraseology to go to the next level, to go to next level.

I would say that's an issue.

We here, I want to I want to ask this, which is, because it is a workforce issue as much as anything else because, you know, you you pointed to the.

Just as it was.

Pointed out, that's a workforce, right?

Yet legislative leaders have said, well, listen, you're not getting much more out of us, so the private sector has to step up and do it on their own.

Do you think that drum getting gets even louder from the General Assembly at this point?

absolutely.

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce has repeatedly, almost every year in recent years, made this a top priority.

They actually commissioned a study that said the lack of childcare options cost our economy 4 billion a year.

And I think one of the problems for business leaders is that the market just doesn't work the same way in childcare as it does in other areas without jeopardizing the safety of children, especially young infants and toddlers.

So you can only cut regulations so much in that area.

Yes.

And because of the ratios that we implement to keep that safety, you know, parents can't afford to pay for a teacher when they're only splitting it with 1 or 2 other parents because infants need more care.

So this is a place where it's just not working to leave it completely in the hands of the private.

And keep in mind, regulations already have been relaxed in terms of the number of children that can be supervised or the age of providers, themselves.

So it's not as if.

There's.

Wiggle room there.

Yeah.

They've taken steps already to try and deregulate where they could.

But again, you you go much further and now you're getting into a especially seen child.

That's right.

Right.

The tragedy that would make headlines and caused this issue to explode.

And like so many other sectors, this is an area where again, women and women of color especially are disproportionately employed and also not paid very well.

Yeah.

Well, time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we post an unscientific online poll question.

And this week's question is should the Indiana state government devote more money to child care access a yes or b no?

Last week we asked you whether redrawing Indiana's congressional map will guarantee that Republicans have all nine seats in the US House, and 27% of you say yes, 73% say no.

If you'd like to take part in the poll, go to wfyi.org/iwir and look for the poll.

Well, Hoosiers got a chance this week to weigh in on whether the state should require all municipal elections to move to presidential or congressional midterm election years.

Secretary of State Diego Morales is hosting a series of public meetings on the issue, as part of a study ordered by the legislature.

Part of the meeting was a presentation by the Secretary of State's office.

It covered the potential cost savings and voter turnout, impact of moving municipal elections, municipal elections statewide in 2023 cost about $18 million, with voter turnout of just 20%.

Jennifer Lewis works for the Vigo County clerk.

She worries adding city offices to federal and statewide ballots will create confusion.

The times we have for voting, I can.

Only imagine that there's people going to be behind even.

Longer what the lengths of the ballot that it's.

Going to be.

Morales says he's heard different views as he travels the state.

He says elected leaders in larger counties want municipal elections to stay where they are.

In some other, smaller cities.

They want to save some money and they're willing to move their elections.

Morales says the report his office will present to lawmakers will not include a recommendation.

Jon Schwantes, both in the legislative session when this issue was debated.

And then what we heard from the study and the discussion here is that, yes, this would save money.

Is that a good enough reason for this kind of major shift?

I'm all for saving money, but I'd say elections are one area where we can splurge a little bit.

You know, we've saved up a few shekels.

Let's go crazy and have wonderful elections.

yeah.

The problem, of course, is when you pack everything potential problem into one, cycle.

What?

I would argue that voters aren't paying enough attention now in the cycles as they are structured.

I mean, it's a lot of like, oh, that name sounds familiar.

That's I think I have a cousin with that last name, so, so I don't think we're going to all of a sudden see a better educated electorate, deciding that they.

I only have to do my homework now, once every four years.

So I don't have a lot of optimism in that way.

If anything, I think it will cloud the issues that these very important municipal races won't get much attention.

And as long as we have straight ticket voting in this state, really it's going to be, probably a, decision.

It will all be determined by what the top of the ticket is.

So are we are we happy?

It's, you know, with the presidential performance.

Are we not?

And it all becomes a referendum to a certain extent on national issues, when in fact, we all know when we'll stipulate that local issues oftentimes are dramatically different.

And in many ways are apolitical or nonpartisan.

I mean, I think, you know, the point that Diego Morales was making and when we talked to him after this meeting, I thought was a good one, which is he's going around the state and you have split opinions on this, particularly larger communities say, no, we don't want our list of how many candidates going on, a list of how many other candidates on a, you know, on an even numbered year.

But in some of these really small cities or towns, at least if they're larger than 3500 people who don't have the option to move, they say, yeah, we need to save this money and it's not going to make that big a difference.

Should this be an option that communities can enact on their own?

Is that the route the.

Legislature should.

Go?

Yeah, I absolutely think that if, you know, I think that, Karen Italian, who's leads the Democratic Party, said that her hometown or somewhere near her hometown had elected to move because state law already allows you if right, for.

Towns under large towns under 30.

So I think that if the community wants to do that and wants to pursue that, then I think that's perfectly logical.

I mean, where I lived in Mississippi, one of the problems was that we always had a, lot money for runoff elections.

And we don't do that here in Indiana.

So I think that if local elected officials want to look and identify places to save money, as long as it has that community support, I don't see why, you.

Know, should this become an option for for communities who don't currently have it?

Yeah, I don't necessarily see this problem.

I see there being a problem with it being an option.

If a community like we need to be listening to communities and when they say, hey, this is something we need, especially like election divisions and clerks that are trying to put on elections.

Sure, I do worry with the straight ticket voting, moving municipal elections in larger areas and making it a decision for everyone.

that can be really confusing.

Also, I think, where Democrats have been able to make some gains are in the cities.

So if you move straight ticket voting with municipal to straight ticket vote, straight ticket voting in a largely Republican year, then that will be affected.

It was during the legislative session.

It wasn't just Democratic mayors who were at the state House.

In fact, most of the mayors who testified were Republicans going, come on, guys.

Well, it kind of gets to John's point with, one of the points John made, which was these local officials don't want to be running on the same ballot as the president of the United States because their issues are not the federal issues.

Yeah.

I was county chairman for eight years in Hendricks County.

And the the tone of that municipal election year and the conversation was just different.

And I'm with Jon.

It's it's, you know, the National I'm already frustrated with the nationalization of races that have nothing to do with national issues, for offices that have no impact on national issues.

But you're running on federal immigration policy, you know, whatever, whatever the issue is, and you can just get lumped into that.

And that is a long ballot to get down.

And, you know.

Judges.

Judges.

Oh, I mean, just I mean, in the 20.

Committeemen, I mean.

You're you're in the 20 pages.

And in the 2024 election, I felt like there in Marion County that I think there were like 20 judges for retention.

Election day, a holiday.

And we're going to have to stand line for.

And make it easier for folks to vote that way.

It would just be easier for folks.

I'm not for it, but maybe the option, but I'm not for it.

Like these demands need need attention.

Money is the only factor.

Just get an applause meter.

Have people go out at a certain designated at night, an hour.

Just point.

I'm just.

I'm just tired of making it easy on voters.

You got an obligation here.

And when you you're.

Do your education that when you're.

Older.

Well, it's voters don't put any hard time on themselves.

Right.

Well you don't want to file.

And finally Indiana university football Indiana University football's opening weekend win over Old Dominion also featured the reintroduction of Hoosier the Bison as an IU mascot.

The IU student government passed a measure late last year to bring back the mascot that was only in use from 1965 to 1969.

Elise, what do you think about Hoosier the bison as an IU mascot.

As a new adjunct at IU?

you know me, I love fashion.

I am looking forward to Hoosier the bison merch.

I'm ready.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, there it is.

Hoosier the bison I like I like, I like I mean, you know, it's not as good as Truman the Tiger, the Mizzou mascot, but that's fine.

Hoosier, the bison is great.

Don't forget, there's a very smart bar in Bloomington that's been around for decades that never.

Never, never took it.

Down.

Maybe this is why they've been around for decades.

All right, that's Indiana Week in Review for this week.

Our panel is political strategist Elise Shrock.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

Jon Schwantes of Indiana Lawmakers.

And Whitney Downard of the Indiana Capitol Chronicle.

You can find Indiana Week In Reviews podcast and episodes at wfyi.org/iwir or on the PBS app.

I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting.

Join us next time, because a lot can happen in an Indiana week.

The views expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Weekend In Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations.