(Music) >> BRANDON SMITH: The governor it does not dismiss recent criticism over Indiana's competitive this.

Plus, record overdose deaths again and more on "Indiana Week in Review" for the week ending June 3rd, 2022.

>> ANNOUNCER: Made possible by the support of Indiana Public broadcasting stations.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Governor Eric Holcomb is not dismissing critiques of Indiana's competitiveness despite recent -- reason economic investments in the state.

A few weeks ago, Eli Lilly city of David ricks delivered sharp criticism over Indiana's ability to attract businesses and talent.

He said the Hoosier State does not measure up in the education attainment of its workforce.

Dent last week, Lilly announced in the state.

Still, Governor Holcomb says that does not negate ricks' mornings.

>> ERIC HOLCOMB: I think Mr. Ricks stated the obvious.

The more talent, the more educated, the healthier, the more skilled up Hoosiers are, the better every Company, not just Eli Lilly, but every company will do.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Holcomb emphasized that Indiana's most important asset is people and how smart and healthy they are.

At the press conference announcing Lilly's new investment, ricks said the company and the state would have to work together to ensure a constant flow of highly trained workers.

How should we view David ricks' criticisms now?

It is the first question for our Indiana Week in Review panel.

Democrat Ann DeLaney.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

John Johnson, host of Indiana lawmakers a. I am Brandon Smith and if you are paying attention, that is a new title.

Congratulations on your new job.

Mike O'Brien, we talked a few weeks criticisms.

his money where his mouth is.

It is not for the business to look at the government and go, let's know where the workforce is a trend.

It is very much having businesses invested in this data identify and train workers in the states doing a lot to assist in that.

So in part, we have.

We have great community leaders.

But we have a generation of these guys that built Indianapolis and central Indiana and big goals.

We are not -- we don't have a tremendous tightline of those people who replaced the guys.

Putting Indiana in the position too.

And maybe ricks is one of the people that can lead the way and lead by example.

>> BRANDON SMITH: This did not happen in a vacuum.

When he was making those comments.

In that way it does that may be more informed those criticisms even more than we thought and the time?

>> I think when you look at what this is get this is a manufacturing facility.

Indiana is the manufacturing state.

It is going to make a thousand or 2,000 workers and their families very happy because they are good jobs.

But for the part of Lilly that is doing research and development than that, that is going to states that invest in public and higher education and invest in healthcare.

And Indiana is not among them.

What they ricks was saying is that those investments occur.

That benefits everybody in Indiana.

All of us.

It benefits.

As opposed to a couple of thousand workers.

I'm not saying that I'm sneezing at a couple thousand good jobs.

I'm glad about that.

But what has happened with manufacturing is we have seen is automation.

And the number of people employed in that development, and manufacturing industries, has plummeted.

And we need to think about what the jobs of the future are going to be and what David Ricks is saying is that if we don't spend the money on case -- K through 12 and making it healthier and more inclusive workforce, we are going to miss out on those jobs and that is a clear message because we are not doing what we need to do.

>> BRANDON SMITH: So asking the governor the question that I asked him, which was basically what we are talked about here.

Does this investment from Lilly negate all of the Christ is -- criticisms?

Barely by the time I got the question, he was like, absolutely not.

Is heat right?

>> I think he understands there are some of these problems still ongoing in the state.

Ricks even clarified or emphasized something else he said when he made those critiques in that he also said this is a state where people care about the future and people are going to work together to, you know, make sure that future is bright and that we solve these problems.

Well, that being said, those problems are not solved quickly.

Right?

I mean they are certainly not solved by the time that announcement was made and they are not going to be solved, I dunno, even before they start hiring mac for some of these positions and so I think the government realizes and you kind of saw this in his statements and in Ricks' statements that they will have to work together to fill these jobs and the jobs for the businesses that will be around Lily.

Ricks talked about wanting suppliers to locate nearby.

You will need skilled workforce to fill those positions as well.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Jon, I want to combined what they said.

Mike talked about this can't be the government telling -- and Lindsay's point that none of this is happening quickly.

When you take the fact that Ricks has made these criticisms and announced these expansions and the government says, yeah, does that sort of signal that we are all in this together and we all need to be moving, you know, in one direction?

>> JON SCHWANTES: I think there is an element of that.

When we talk about Eli Lilly, we are not talking about a disinterested party that just is offering a critique in a sort of a scholastic critique of the workforce and the living climate and Indiana.

They have been here since Reconstruction.

They are heavily invested in this community and in fact, they derive benefit from being in Indiana, too.

I believe there are a number of poison pills that have been inserted over the years to give Lilly protections that it might not received from unwanted advances from corporate suitors and others that might try to take it over.

Indiana has been good.

Just as Eli Lilly has been good to Indiana.

It is not as if we have a company that is just looking at a map of the United States and saying, let's start fresh.

Where do we want to go?

It is already here.

It wants to dance, I think, with the one that brought it this far for a lot of reasons and contributing to the quality of life overall.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we pose an unscientific, online poll question.

This week's question is, it is Eli Lilly CEO David ricks' criticism Indiana's competitiveness negated by Lily's new tubular dollars investment in the state?

A, yes or B, no.

Last week's question, it will Indiana Republicans pitch inflation relief for Hoosiers?

62% say no.

I would say that is looking more and more likely.

If you would like to take part in the poll go to WFYI.org/IWIR and look for the poll.

The Indiana House will at some point have a new Ways and Means Committee chair as state agencies and other groups prepare their budget requests for next year's legislative session.

The new chair will replace Representative Tim Brown, who has led the committee since 2012.

House Speaker Todd used and it says there's a lot of conversations but did not give a timeline for his selection.

>> TODD HUSTON: I care a lot about that committee.

I have some expense with that committee.

I feel like we got a good group of people interested in it.

And I'm talking to those people and we will make a decision.

>> Before becoming Speaker of the house, Houston served as cochair of Ways and Means after Brown was in a serious motorcycle accident.

Brown is part of a handful of lawmakers who announced their retirement.

Ann DeLaney, how important is it?

>> ANN DeLANEY: I think it is pretty important.

I think it is more important that we have a successors that is reasonable part.

There's a whole element of the super majority that thinks the only thing the legislature is supposed to do is stand out of the way and cut corporate taxes.

We need the kin of investment that Dave Briggs was -- Dave Ricks was talking about.

And we need somebody committed to that.

And there's a whole wing of the Republican party that does not think that that is their function.

They are not in favor, I think of public education and certainly not in favor of expanding the opportunities for higher education.

I think that is fatal.

To the things we were talking about and the ability of the state to attract the jobs of the next-generation.

And we need somebody in that position that can think more like an economist and less like a.

If we are going to have some success.

It is important to get it done.

It is even more important to get it done right.

Trend of sleet you have a sort of baseline budget and you know you're going to be letting for.

In public but if you are one of the groups that the governor's health commission, public health commission that is preparing a major budget request, if you are Indiana University who also -- always would like help from the state of Indiana, how do you make that pitch to the first house when it comes to the budget?

It is going to depend a little on who that is and we don't have a good sense of who that might be.

>> There's some things in that mix.

And I think house leadership is looking, we need that present in place from the start.

I mean, typically, how this happens is you get past the election.

Every other year, new General assembly, you are appointing new committee chairs.

That causes kind of a domino effect.

Ways and means, you are moving significant other chairman into a more significant role because they have experience.

All of that normally happens in November.

That can't be the case in this situation.

In this house or the Senate and the government and housestaff are like, here is the budget we wrote.

It is not going to work that way.

I think there's great names in that mix.

We had a lot of turnover in the last few years.

There's a recognition that they got to start filling the pipeline of leaders.

They will have the next cycle of two, Senior guys rolling off.

Met Lehman.

These guys are not going to be there for the next decade.

Ethan Manning is a great young guy coming up.

He has taken a look at this.

There's a great young members of the General assembly that they can develop.

They got to start doing right now.

>> BRANDON SMITH: And part of the trick is there was somebody who had been groomed for this role.

When docked is finally going to retire, that this is going to be the nuke Ways and Means chair.

>> Maybe he would like to resign.

>> And then that second diagnostic it leaves maybe more wide open.

Does getting somebody in place who can work with Doc Brown on training him to do him or her to do that job, too.

>> The ideal thing would have been to have someone who can go through multiple sessions who was not going to rise to another position of leadership.

And I think there is a lot of desire obviously on the part of leadership to get somebody who is not of the ilk that Ann describes that sees any budget process as being, you know, deep equivalent selling out of American ideals.

You don't want that.

You want to somebody who can work with leadership, whether they are the old guard, I don't even think of them as the old guard.

The ones in the positions now.

And there's a lot at stake.

And we have been blessed in this statement you go back both chambers.

We have had great people on that better.

You know?

On the Senate, you go back to Lou Kinley.

You go back to Jeff aspect.

There are people.

You know they knew their way around and they knew how to get these deals done and come up with something that was both idealistic and practical, which is hard, and roll it into a package that could get votes.

>> BRANDON SMITH: When Tim Brown took over that was a surprise.

He had never served as far as I'm aware on ways and means.

He was the chair of the public health committee.

He said we know that health spending is going to be a major part of what we do for the next decade plus.

That is why I want this guy in this position.

If you had to pick a subject matter, what do you think that would be?

>> We just sat and talked about how there's all these areas where the state needs to prioritize spending and make all these improvements and I dunno if we can pick just one.

I guess if I had to .2, it would probably be health and education.

The two big ones.

>> We are still working on that.

>> That being said, I think whoever is in the role is not going to be someone who is totally unaware of the process and what is going on.

They are not going to set this person up to be crazy and not knowing what is going on.

Exactly.

And you still have to Houston as speaker -- Todd Houston as speaker there.

It is not like you are losing all of that expertise and all of that knowledge with Dr. Brown.

>> Like one brown doing this.

>> We talked a lot about that.

Are expected he will still do that.

And you could pick a younger guy.

Making a long-term pick.

>> I want to focus on one thing.

You just said a younger guy.

>> As a candidate.

>> I want to S, and this is its own maybe topic, but are there a lot of women?

>> Cheryl is in the mix of it.

One thing you do hear is there are candidates who do not want to be appointed.

It changes your life.

You are in Indianapolis a lot of the time.

>> And it will be more interesting because of all of the money that the state has.

I'm not sure if that makes it easier or harder.

>> BRANDON SMITH: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released its provisional program -- report on overdose deaths.

As WFIU/WTIU's Mitch Legan reports, Indiana saw record numbers for the second consecutive year.

>> MITCH LEGAN: The state soft 2,700 Hoosiers die of drug overdoses last year.

State Drug Czar Douglas Huntsinger knows the call.

>> DOUG HUNTSINGER: 85% of those are due to fentanyl.

>> MITCH LEGAN: Ted Noah was initially developed to treat pain from serious illnesses like cancer.

But it is cheap and potent, so drug dealers mix with other substances to provide a more powerful high.

Trap Travis Jester is the director of recovery for the Jay County Drug Prevention Coal Coalition.

He says they are seeing fentanyl in everything.

>> TRAVIS JESTER: What we have seen in this area is an uptick, apologize if I use Street terms, that is the white fentanyl.

That stuff will kill you.

Stay away from that.

The brown fentanyl is acceptable.

You know?

And as a person in recovery, when I was doing heroin, it was always brown.

As soon as I heard about white stuff, it is like, that is not heroin.

>> MITCH LEGAN: Indiana will receive $546 million this fall from drug manufacturers for their role in the opioid epidemic.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Jon Schwantes there has been a focus of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Is it tim for the larger public to start refocusing some attention on the opiate epidemic?

>> JON SCHWANTES: I think it has to because the problem has been mask perhaps -- mask perhaps or obscured by COVID.

If anything, COVID only exacerbated a long-running problem because the same factors that were contributing I think to this spike, most public health experts would say, which.

Economic challenges for certain segments of the state, both demographically and Jeff -- geographically.

And the availability of these drugs and increased amounts.

Created the perfect storm.

That was before COVID.

You throw in COVID where again, we joke about how the state is flush with cash.

We talked about how that markets are strong.

But there are still Hoosiers still hurting, took a blow during COVID and have not recovered.

I think that is certainly contributing to this increased spike.

And we talked about quality of life and the issues facing our stay on sort of that grand scale at the top of the show and I would say this is a part of that equation.

A society, the workforce is not an effective workforce.

>> BRANDON SMITH: I won't say save the General Assembly has ignored the drug epidemic.

It has not played.

But do you think we will see a renewed focus on that as we go into the next session or two?

>> It is possible.

It could certainly come up.

We talked about help health is going to be a big focus and other legislation that comes up.

The governor's public health commission.

That is looking at a lot of different health conditions, not just drug overdoses and drug usage.

So we will see.

But you would think that this is starting to get a little bit more attention.

I mean, we are not talking about one to 2% increase year over year.

This is 20, 21%.

That is a big jump.

Yeah, COVID took over and rightfully so and it kind of almost feels like when you have like five fires going on that you have to pick the biggest one to put out and this has not been the biggest one yet.

At what point is it?

>> BRANDON SMITH: Public health experts say that trying to criminalize your way out of an opioid epidemic is not that way to do it.

But we reformed our state's criminal, a decade ago and that maybe helped some things but it has not been a fix for a lot of stuff.

Arbery going to start seeing lawmakers try to be tough on drugs and crimes?

>> I hope not because the tough on drugs only exacerbates the problem.

It does not stop the problem.

It does not cure the problem.

The problem is you have a whole segment of society that is outside the healthcare and outside the economic opportunity.

And we need to address that in order to give them something else and locking them up at, it was it it -- what is it costing now?

And it seems to meet we could transfer has of that as a subsidy for at them and they would be better off and we will not keep building prisons.

I don't think the tough on crime approach is a good one.

If you want to go after dealers, that is one thing.

But we already do.

But on usage, it makes absolutely no sense, either morally or economically.

>> BRANDON SMITH: They just talked about the idea of there's a lot to this.

There's a lot of reasons people become addicted to opioids.

And is addressing this problem going to be done maybe not by addressing this narrow problem, but all of the things we have been talk about both on this show and the last several weeks about public health and access to mental health resources and adding more jobs and education?

Is all of that going to by default improve this?

>> We know it does.

You know?

The problems -- one things that needs to be recognized at the state house and think is to some degree, this issue and how people become addicted in rural Indiana and urban Indiana is the same.

It is lack of quality education options.

It is lack of economic opportunity.

>> Lack of access to the quality health care.

>> Or you are in the wrong place in the system, which they will try to address here.

No access to mental health or addiction services.

Move the back to D.O.C., where they have access to those services.

>> Fingers crossed.

And there are leaders who have resisted that sort of thing.

The state board that oversees the Gary school district voted was need to extend its contract with an outside management company.

Florida-based MGT Consulting has run the district since 2017.

The state took over Gary pop in schools because of severe financial problems.

The manager helped improve the state -- district's finances but they do not have a plan to eat the takeover.

Justin McAdam is chairman of the board.

>> JUSTIN McADAM: We see this as the beginning of the end.

We believe that as a board that we are in a position where this engagement, at least in its current form, and can be included -- concluded in two years.

However, that does require legislative intervention.

>> BRANDON SMITH: McAdam says the manager will focus on improving academics over the next two years.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Lindsay, does this need to become a topic that is at the front of mind for lawmakers?

>> Probably.

For something to really change, I think they will have to be practical rallying again and getting their attention because you even heard Senator Lindsey Graham say that it was a maze management by the company.

The "does not seem to be quite yet this big is -- desire to hand it back over and I would not be surprised if there was some fear among some lawmakers that if they had it back over things are just going to be bad again.

Whether or not that is a valid points that you could argue that.

But I would not be surprised if that is what some lawmakers are thinking and that would give some some hesitation.

The parents are going to have to be saying that this is why this needs to happen.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Jon Schwantes, I debated whether not to do this topic because it is about Gary.

It is also about a model and giving it back to that district.

In essence, does it matter to rest of the state how Indiana resolves its takeover of the Gary school district?

>> JON SCHWANTES: I think it should even if it does not.

Maybe the notion as a state and we have talked a lot about workforce development about quality of life.

I hate to use the phrase No Child Left Behind but I mean, you can't leave Gary kids behind.

And so I think it is important and I think when think of h -- about this process, the scales have to be tipped.

Someone could argue that a management company could be more effective than having 150 people.

I'm being somewhat facetious here.

But there are people who say, I can do this better.

Forget the 150.

We do it the other way because that is what is supposed to be done in a democracy.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Mike O'Brien, let me ask you this.

Does it make it harder given that every lawmaker at the state help everyone who represents Gary are all Democrats who have very little power?

>> MIKE O'BRIEN: Yes.

Accept the legislature does not necessarily want to be in disposition.

There are very specific statutory triggers that require the state to take this over.

And so it is not like political in the decision that is made.

We will take it over because we don't like them.

>> Getting back out, there is no trigger.

>> MIKE O'BRIEN: Right.

I can't remember who was in that package.

But Justin did say he thinks that this is the beginning of the end.

>> BRANDON SMITH: That is "Indiana Week in Review" for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Ann DeLaney, Republican Mike O'B O'Brien, Jon Schwantes of Indiana lawmakers, and Lindsay O'Doherty.

If you would like a podcast that you can find it at WFYI.o WFYI.org/IWIR.

Or you can stream it or get it on demand from Xfinity and from the WFYI app.

Join us next time.

A lot can happen in an Indiana week.

>> ANNOUNCER: The opinions expressed are solely those of the panelist.

"Indiana Week in Review" is a