Senator Greg Taylor accused of sexual harassment.

The Tax Review Task Force's recommendations, plus no recommendation from a medicaid oversight board.

And more from the television studios at I.

It's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending November 22nd, 2024.

Indiana Week in Review is made possible by the supporters of Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

This week, Democratic leade Greg Taylor was largely silent about sexual harassment allegations against him.

Taylo made his first public comments on an organization day at the statehouse, one day after an Indianapolis Star story detailed those accusations.

Taylo made remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday about the upcoming legislative session, but did not directly reference the sexual harassment allegations from three wome in the star story, allegations that his statement to the star did not deny.

And I will let my actions speak louder than any word I can say from this microphone.

I will continue to fight for those who don't have.

They don't have a voice.

Senate Republican Leader Rodric Bray told reporters he's extremely disappointed in Taylor.

I've expressed that to him.

We conduct ourselves in a much, much higher level than that.

Taylor refused to answer any questions from reporters should Taylor remain in his position as Senate minority leader.

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

Democrat Ann DeLaney Republican Mike O'Brien.

Kayla Dwyer, statehouse reporter for the Indianapolis Star.

And Niki Kelly, editor in chief of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

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

Ann Delaney, how can Senate Democrats justify Reelecting Taylor as their leader?

I don't think they can.

I mean, I, I don't think he should have stood for reelection, and I don't thin they should have voted for him.

I mean it when you when you look at what's happening nationally, when you have people who are accused of having paying for sex with underage minors, being nominated for high level cabinet positions and, and Fox News guys goin into the Department of Defense and have allegation similarly, it it is inexcusable.

I think that the Democrats did what they did.

How's that?

I think you were you surprised by that?

I don't I actually wasn't no, I was I'm I don't know how anyone can defend that.

So so what we now know about ho that vote for leader went down was among the ten members, Senator Andrea Hunley from Indianapolis went out for for minority leader.

She tried to to to get that Senator Rodney Pol from northwest Indiana, Senator J.D.

Ford from Indianapolis, and Senator Shelli Yode from Bloomington supported her.

But that's just four.

And so the other six members of the caucus clearly threw their weight behind Greg Taylor.

How can they talk about that?

You know, Taylor talked about at the caucus.

I'm sure we'll continue to talk about standing up for women, women's rights, things like that.

How can any of those six sa those things on the Senate floor or anywhere else with a straight face?

I'm at a minimum stunned by this.

Stunned by the speed of it.

Like this comes on a Monday morning, a Monday afternoon.

You're holding the vote.

I mean.

It was already scheduled.

It was not up.

But you could you could als recently push that back, right?

But I mean, that was what that's what surprised me.

I understand the, And just get to the bottom of it.

But the other thing was, Taylor, I thought Taylor kind of owned it, but that's even more reason to find out what what really happened in his statement.

He didn't he didn't deny it.

No.

He didn't.

He didn't say sorry.

Sorry if they felt that way, bro.

I made a mistake.

No.

I apologize.

For the.

Lines, you know?

And politically, this is the problem.

You come out.

If you were.

If you were in that pitch, go by on Curtis Hill or Matt Gaetz or, you know, whatever.

Like whoever is the you know, accusation of the day, if you're letting those pitches go by, but you're not you're like calling for Curtis Hill's impeachment and then you're reelected.

You know, you at least be consistent.

Can we be, like, intellectually consistent?

If you think like, no, we nee to let's not do anything rash.

Nobody step down, you know, investigate.

Let's go investigate and figure out and really get to the bottom really happen.

That's one thing.

And this is this was surprising.

At least I think there's clues in how the situation was handled in terms of figuring out what happened in that caucus room.

As we reported in our story, there was pushback to takin some kind of action against this got skipped over due process concerns.

And I maybe that's a debate that also played out here.

because we put a story out there, these allegations are substantiated with our reporting.

And Senator Greg Taylor did not deny them.

but I could see a world in which maybe there are people who feel that there should be some sort of external investigation.

Now, from the women's perspectives, it certainly appears that you know, you share your stories and then no consequences happen as a result.

And that's very discouraging.

That happens a lot that.

That happens a lot.

Working in that it's working in that building.

I mean, it's eye opening when you, you know, hear stories from other women.

And and that's exactly what happens there.

Like there's the man tends to win and the woman eithe just gets to keep going along.

Said she said, is it that kin of thing happens in front of an but also but also clergy.

In both of these cases, which with Taylor and Scott Taylor did not deny the allegations and basically admitted that he did what he was accused of doing this.

Niezgodsk admitted that he made a mistake and paid the woman off.

And we saw the text.

I mean, there's corroboration in these.

These are not just he said.

She said, right.

And, you know, and the whole due process thing that I get due process when you're talking about a criminal investigation or something.

And again he wasn't called for to resign.

But I think you need to on the side of caution in leadership.

Yeah.

I don't necessarily see the need, since he wasn't denying it an since there was corroboration, you know, I felt like.

And I still feel like not a single one of those other five people have stood up to explain their vote to their constituents.

And I think that's shameful.

I think that's right, because it's you're right, there's no criminal charge involved.

And if there were, the statute of limitations would have run anyway.

But but the point of it is that there is such a thing a the appearance of impropriety.

And when you're in a leadership position, that appearance needs to be observed.

Yeah.

I mean, and the the statement from the caucus that was put out or late later Monday referring to allegations against a member of the legislature, I wonde which member of the legislature it could have been.

Could it have been the person you reelected?

5 or 6.

Yeah.

But the point is, this has happened and this is happening how you can just basically they're going forward like, oh, well, it's nothing happened.

And anything happened to the distancing that other statements that have come out, the distancing other bodies are putting between them and these allegations and the action of the caucus, a statement out of the House, it was like, that's them.

The state party statement.

Like, we have nothing to do with caucus elections.

You know, everyone's trying t distance themselves from this, but this is a cultural, systemic issue.

Yeah.

But that there's there's this I mean, I guess that has to do with the house.

The house.

You can do that saying, listen, we have a very different structure.

We have our own rules in place.

That's one thing.

But the state party to go, I mean, you know, that's just a guy over there we can't do anything about.

Well, that's best.

They can do anything about.

Not procedurally.

But they can.

You say bully pulpit and pressure those members to ask for another vote.

That's what they can.

Do in those districts.

The way they're gerrymandered.

You can really.

Get a pivot to gerrymandering But it doesn't matter.

But it doesn't.

But that does matter because those five are safe.

And that's the point.

But that gives.

But that's more reason to pressure them.

I don't that's more it's not like if Greg Taylor resigns or Greg Taylor steps down from leadership, that that seat is suddenly going to go to a Republican.

Right Why are we fighting and yelling?

And we all agree.

It's all agree that.

We're getting fired up about it though.

All right.

Time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we post an unscientific online poll question.

And this week's question is should Senator Greg Taylor resign following accusations of sexual harassment?

A yes or no?

Last week, we asked you whether Michael Beckwith will frequently clash with Mike Braun while they served together in office.

62% of you say yes, 38% say no.

If you'd like to take part in the poll.

Got a fiord email Weir and look for the poll.

Help i likely on the way for property tax payers, but that help will also take time.

That's the message this week from a state task force that spent the last two year reviewing Indiana's tax system.

The task force issued recommendations Wednesday that broadly point towards improving transparency and simplicity in property taxes, providing relief particularly for those age 65 and older and reducing taxes for businesses.

Task Force Chai Jeff Thompson says any property tax change won't affect next year's bills.

People understand that in the 25 session you can't affect the 25 bills.

It will be 26.

That's been the standard.

And so I don't see at least mos people not understanding that.

Democratic Representative Ed DeLaney was the only task force member to vote against the recommendations.

He says lawmakers need to take bolder action to address a tax shift over the last decade.

That's hurt homeowners.

So I think it's time to get serious about what's happened to the.

Tax caps after what, 13 years of one party control and 15 or 16 years of the tax caps?

I don't think they're working for the homeowners.

Thompson says the task force avoided more specific recommendations because they would have been too detailed for the task force to agree on.

Mike O'Brien.

Both Senator Holdman and Representative Thompso kind of have the same line about people will understand it' not going to happen right away.

Do you think people will understand lawmakers can't do any thing about their property tax bills next year?

Well I think that's the right to set that expectation because of how hard that is.

If oh.

I agree tha that nothing is going to happen.

But do you think people are going to understand that that's just the way it is?

If you've ever bought a house, I think hopefully you understood what was happening.

You know, you know, if you maybe understood how your taxes were being paid or how they do get paid.

But you're right.

I mean, there' because you're feeling it now.

You're feeling it right now, or you felt it over the last, the last couple of years.

You may even feel the last couple of years.

And so like, you know, but the alternative is so we do something that that also is barely going to be no, you know, some kind of stimulus check or so I mean, there's been other mechanisms, like in similar situations where the legislatur at the state and federal level has tried to provide, like immediate relief.

That really hasn't, you know, that hasn't done a lot.

I don't then it's you're acting the dots and that's another leap that you're asking people to.

I do, I do also want the message I, I've got a real problem with the over 65 relief, because all of the wealth or the vast majority of the wealth in this country is held by people 65 to 74.

The the percent of wealth held by people 27 to 42 is 6.5%.

Those are the people buying houses for the first time.

I get that if you're if you're old, you bought a $150,000 house.

It's now worth 400,000 And that's where your money is.

but that is and that's bee now your fuel in that tax bill.

But that is wealth.

That is where the wealth is or going to go provide.

It should at least be means tested or like based on like need.

Yeah.

And I think, there was some observation of maybe the idea of those age 65 or older who are on fixed incomes, although how do you define how you define how you define that is the way to do it, in terms of what they will eventually do?

The report is very general very broad, not that specific.

Do you think there will be even going down the line, significant changes to the property tax system?

I think there have to be significant changes.

And I agree with you that the over 65, aspect of this, what's what's interesting about this is, you know, as Mark Peterson about the effect of property tax.

What's happened here is that the average homeowner in this states property taxes have gone up 92% since the Republicans took control, 92%.

And it's, you know, it's that's a huge increase, okay, way beyond inflation.

And in large part, it's don because they've stopped putting the same percentage of the stat budget into education funding.

We've gone from 44% to 36%.

Did that goe to traditional public education.

And even if you add in the vouchers, it doesn't go above 40%.

And that puts an additional burden on property taxes.

Meanwhile, they won't even discuss this nonsense they have of scaling down the business ta and scaling down the income tax.

Nobody even feels the income tax cut.

Could you take that income tax to Starbucks or Hubbard and Cravens an get a coffee with a once a week?

Probably not even but multiplied over the state.

It's a huge decrease in the income available, as we see from the projections this last year, there's going to be less money available.

They need to stop those.

They need to properly fund education.

And that will have a positive impact from property taxes.

I mean, if they really wanted to stop bills from getting out of control, you have to just limit.

I mean, isn' it really just limiting the AV, whic if you want to sell your house, you don't want to happen, right?

Yeah.

I mean, there are pros and cons to everything.

I think the fascinating part of this two year tax form is that i we got very vague, general ideas on how to help homeowners or income taxpayers, and we got very specific suggestions on how to help, how to help businesses.

And I thought the whole thin started with helping homeowners sort of more basic citizens.

And and it again, it seems tilted toward businesses once again.

So the chamber recently released parts one and two of their tax study, which very much highlight the business.

Personal property tax seem to be the one area where they were saying, this is kind of where we're a bit of an outlier and we could make real change there.

And I wonder if that ha an impact on where they headed.

Well, we've.

Been having that discussion since my bet.

Yeah.

I mean for for yeah, for a decade now.

just about on the business personal property tax is that I think the biggest change likely in terms of taxes in the upcoming session is the business personal property tax.

Depreciation for, For even the depreciation floor and like the minimum threshol to start paying it probably.

To.

Oh yeah.

No, that makes no sense from the way it's structured now.

Makes no sense from a policy standpoint.

So it's at least you can explain why you would why you should do that and why we're kind of an outlier nationally.

Yeah.

All right.

The committee tasked with making legislative recommendations on Medicaid once again submitted a final report with no recommendations.

Indiana Public Broadcasting's Abigail Ruhman reports.

Last year, the committee chair said they would use any information from hearings to inform recommendations this year.

This year's Medicaid Oversight Committee chair submitted an informational report that summarized the only meeting the committee held.

The committee did not propose or vote on any recommendations ahea of the 2025 legislative session.

Democrat Greg Porter is the House minority member on the committee.

He says lawmakers need to have meaningful conversations about what the futur of Medicaid in the state holds.

But only having one meeting cut off that debate.

We're going to be extremely vocal, in regards to the lack of transparency and the lack of communication with the minority party.

Porter says.

People deserve to know what's happening with their Medicaid coverage.

He also says the financial situation as a result of last year's Medicaid forecasting error is not as bad as it seemed.

Niki, we've talked on the show before how the role of legislative study committee has largely changed the statehouse.

It's not really about coming up with draft bills or even recommendations much anymore, but this one was created.

I revived but created specifically to say we need to come up with recommendations on this really important topic that lawmakers are trying to grapple with.

How can they justify only having on meeting on the topic this year?

I mean, that's that's real bad, but Medicaid is such a big thing, and it's taking up so much of the budget to only have one meeting and no recommendations.

That' honestly just a waste of money.

That's a waste of pain.

They're pretty to come down for that.

And they say, well, we learned things well that let people submit a report or something because and I and I know sometimes there aren't any recommendations.

But again, like you said, sometimes we do sort of the different than the normal interim.

And you usually get a lot more, whether it's road funding or taxes or housing.

A couple of years ago, and s that was pretty disappointing.

Yeah.

I mean, we have examples.

You just mentioned the the Road Funding task force, I mean, basically created the the road funding plan.

You know, in 2017, the housing task force had recommendations, even the one we just talked about, broad recommendations but recommendations nonetheless.

This comes on the heels of over the last year, these families who are being most impacted right now by changes to Medicaid, saying you are not being open and transparent with us, does this sort of thing just feed further into you're not being open and transform?

I really think it does.

I mean, it's this entire question is a political question.

Do what what services do we want to fun and how does it affect people?

it's all about budgeting in your priorities.

And I think if a task force wants to meet once and hear the same testimony they're probably going to hear during, committee hearings, and then not, make any sort of directional, decision with it.

it's a signal to me that they don't want to take a position on this political issue.

You can debate the value of specific recommendations versus broader ones.

I mean, with the the tax review task force, at least we have a sense of where lawmakers heads are at and kind of the, the areas.

And, and so for the public or whether or not and so forth if you're a member of the public is reading that story or listening to this program or watching it and hearin what those broad recommendations are, well, I, I'm going to write to my representative.

I'm going to write to my senator and say what you're talking about this this is what I would like you to do on Medicaid.

Where are lawmakers heads up?

Do we have any sens of where they're where they're.

You know, my 25 years working for a lot of that, largely in health care.

I've never seen more mor attention on Medicaid.

Largely.

That's there's more people in the room.

And that's, of course, driven by, you know, the the percent that it's occupying in the budget.

But I've never seen more attention on on that program and how it's grown.

And and with good reason.

There's more peopl that are on it than ever before.

I mean, we're it's one in about 1 in 3 Hoosiers, you know, more than half the babies born in Indiana or Medicaid, you know, so there's appropriately a lot of attention on that.

you know, so I think and I think it's going to be a pretty substantial conversation in this session.

And I also think if you look at how long we're going to get to in a segment, how Brian is kind of reorganizing, or reorganizing state government or proposing to, I think there's been a lot of attention on, on FISA generally by, of as like the first tier of agencies that are going to see reform.

So it was maybe not that I'm saying that was motivated, like having one hearing and not doing any recommendations, but it might have been appropriate if that was the case.

Do you think, I mean, do you have a sense of where lawmakers are heads?

I mean, I think it's safe to say changes are coming to Indiana's Medicaid program.

Do we have any sense of what those changes might be beyon what they've already been doing?

Well I think they're going to affect the people that are most vulnerable.

And the smaller percentages that can't object very loudly to those kinds of changes, and they want to do it in the back room.

They don't want to do it under the public eye because they know how unsympathetic their positions are.

They don't want to deal with the fact that both both the agency in the actuarial, projections on this were way off.

Okay.

Heads on a roll on that.

We should at least have a new actuarial, group looking at.

An outside firm.

Who does an outside firm that looks at it.

Well, for what we pay for that, to have them almost $1 billion for doing it.

They've been doing it for decades.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

But there are now.

No.

Do we need do we need them.

Do we need a new one?

Is there anything.

That the same people that are doing it for decades, or do they have a new group in there that maybe isn't experienced enough.

So you they want to make the cuts that they think are going to save money, and they don't want to take the political flack that they should tak for cutting the most vulnerable.

That's where those cuts will do.

But they'll come in they'll come in the back room.

I, I do think rank and file lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are hearing from constituents about the Medicaid waitlist, i particular the waiver waitlist.

that's affecting Hoosier seniors and, children with or younger Hoosiers with medically complex conditions.

And there is a little bit of appetite, I think, to try to at least patch that hole.

But, we've tried to reach out to the leadership on that, and there might yeah.

Well, might just heat it up a little bit.

But governor elec Mike Braun announced this week he will reorganize the state's executive branch as he takes office.

Braun says the redesign is aimed at improving efficiency, account The reorganization is focused on the governor's cabinet.

It will consist of the lieutenant governor, state police superintendent and the head of the Indiana National Guard and then secretaries overseeing eight policy areas.

Those policy area include management and budget, health and family services education and business affairs.

Beneat those secretaries will be dozens of state agencies, with one agency leader from each of the policy areas elevated to the role of cabinet secretary.

Braun says the structure will better align state agencies.

The Secretary of Management and Budget will be tasked with exploring ways to further consolidate state government.

I think this has the potential to change a lot at the state House and the state government centers, but is it the sort of thing that citizens are likely to notice at all?

Well, it' certainly seems more intuitive when you look at the structure, and it might help the executives in terms of having an easier sense of communication and knowing what's going on and being able to.

But I think you really for tha to trickle down to the processes and the edicts that your regular low level civil servants are carrying out every day, I think we'll only know once that starts happening.

This is part of I mean, this is something that Mike Braun has talked about before he was elected and certainly after he was elected governor here, that rethinking the way state government is designed and operates, I think, is it safe to say this feels lik just step one of that process?

Yeah, I would imagine so.

I'm sure this is not the onl thing they're going to announce.

I think the secretarie that will kind of be at the top and then have a bunch o agencies below them makes sense.

It'll be interesting to see, you know, for instance, if FSA head is also that that secretary, that's a lot of work on one person.

So are they the same people or are they, you know, separate people?

And you know, what's it going to be like for, say, the secretary of energy to be able will they be able to make direct changes in item, for instance over, you know, so I mean, it'll be interesting to see kind of how that plays out once we get people in those roles.

Efficiency.

It kind of makes logical sense when you look at, you know, the, the, the the the workflow there, the accountability side of it, does this potentially improve that when you're going to have one person overseeing technically all of these agencies and then one person all of these agencies, does that improve accountability if things go not the way we want them.

To, if there's if there are consequences of that accountability, if there aren't, no, it' not going to affect it at all.

I think it's interesting that he seems to have already scaled back the lieutenant governor's responsibilities to what he's statutorily supposed to do.

He doesn't want them out there doing anything other than what he has to let them do, and I hope this gives the the opportunity to rein in them in, not I them.

I EDC in because it's spending money hand over fist with absolutely no accountability.

So if that happens, it would be those would be good things.

How much of an impact can this make in terms of, you know, you just talked about a little bit the interplay with the state House and lawmakers.

I think for lawmakers, it' going to make it more digestible about who's actually in charge.

Right.

It's like it's going to be, you're going to have a lot of these eight peopl are going to be highly visible.

I think the problem before was start to criticize the whole administration.

But over tim and it's just natural over time, that cabinet just kept growing.

You know, you have over 30 people.

And what lawmakers are like, who do I okay, so I passed a law, I went to this agency and then it went to where?

Yeah, like.

And there was a concern about responsiveness.

There's one other area too.

And that's the either the higher education or job training.

It seems like everybody, even the treasurer, thinks he has a role in that now.

So it was those kinds of things that have grown exponentially need to be reined in.

Yeah.

Someone's got to have a have a view, oversee the whole field on what, what work force.

Yeah.

It's hard for you.

You're you're running your little agency to know necessarily all the way.

I interplays with everything else.

So I think it's a great move.

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

Our panel is Democrat An DeLaney Republican Mike O'Brien, Kayla Dwyer of the Indy Star and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

You can find Indiana Wee interviews, 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 lo can happen in an Indiana week.

The opinions expressed ar solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week in Review is a wfyi production in association with Indiana's public broadcasting stations.