House Republicans advance their budget proposal.

A controversial immigration bill clears the House.

Plus a veto threat from Governor Braun and more.

From the television studios at WFYI, it's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending February 21st, 2025.

Indian Week in Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.

This week, 2% per year increases in K-12 education funding.

Hundreds of millions of new dollars for the Department of Child Services and Department of Correction.

And no new tax cuts.

Those are some of the highlights of the House Republican state budget proposal.

K-12 schools will receive about half a billion more in core funding in the House GOP budget proposal, with a significant portion of that estimated to be for eliminating the income limits on the state's private school voucher program.

House Republican budget architect Jeff Thompson says those increases are enough for schools in a tight budget year.

You can manage like the governor plans to manage, by looking at how do we spend our money the most efficiently?

Thompson says there's a lot of alignment with governor Mike Braun's budget proposal that includes 5% cuts to most state agencies, reduce dollars for the local public health funding program and Medicaid funding that does not eliminate existing waitlists.

Is this a budget that's all about, as Representative Jeff Thompson says, opportunity.

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

Democrat Ann DeLaney.

Republican Chris Mitchem.

Jon Schwantes, host of Indiana Lawmakers.

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

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

Chris, does this budget do enough positive things?

I think it does enough positive things at $45 billion can afford right now, for sure.

Because that's the plug in here.

And that's right.

The last thing I want to be in Indiana right now is a state budget writer and not just because you have to be constantly hounded by people like me at the statehouse, but you also have just so many variables and factors that you have to take into account.

And it's by most accounts, people would agree the hardest budget to craft in over a decade.

So you have no idea what's happening at the federal government level.

We have a now controversial property tax proposal floating around out there that's directly tied to a lot of revenue streams.

And then we even found out last week that local sheriffs are telling us that they're not getting paid for, local inmates that they're holding for, the Department of Corrections.

And that's something we didn't even know, like two weeks ago.

And it seems like news like that just continues to break.

And just putting more of a burden on these budget riders.

So you mentioned positive things.

I think doubling the income tax for low income, low income seniors, increasing the career, education scholarships and the special education scholarships as well.

And we're still fully funding Medicaid.

The Senate should be happy that we're throwing $2 billion at the 1977 pension fund.

So I think there is a lot of positive things.

I know it's probably more fun to nitpick about things that are and aren't there.

but I think this is a really good foundation for come April with the revenue for I.

Want to I want to ask about something Chris just brought up because it was the subject of, I'll be honest, most of the floor debate on third reading in the House on the budget yesterday, which was the looming threat of potential federal funding cuts and what that does to the budget, does that make this an unusually difficult budget?

It certainly does, because we talked about this on Medicaid last week.

If they cut the percentage, you know, I don't know what the, chaos president was going to do.

And I don't think he even knows from day to day.

So it it could wreak havoc with the budget.

But the and there are some positive things in this budget as already outlined.

Education funding is not among them.

For the 90% of the students in traditional public schools, they get a 1.3% increase.

Okay, that doesn't even come close to meeting inflation.

And there's no extra money either for special education or for kids in poverty.

And when we talk about an opportunity, that's an opportunity missed, okay.

It really is.

I mean, I think the fact that they're doing something with the with the child services is a good thing.

But it isn't enough for students that are in school struggling with a terrible reading, problem we have among third graders.

And we're, we're we're not even meeting inflation for those expenditures.

And the reason is not only the chaos in Washington, but because these Republicans insist on cutting income and corporate taxes going forward.

They want to now do it to 2030.

That is absolutely crazy economics.

Crazy economics.

And then they say, oh, we we don't have any money.

Well, they don't have any money because they keep doing those stupid things.

that wasn't a very good Jeff Thompson impression.

he hoped I wasn't right.

I wasn't trying Jeff Thompson.

In a budget this tight, is it a little harder for Republicans to sell?

Sell it as a good news budget?

Yeah, I think it's probably a status quo budget.

You know, we are going to see some cuts, but they're trying to make them, you know, so that they're not as noticeable.

you know, they did approve more than 100 million a new money for wealthy citizens to send their child to private school at the same time as cutting a reading program for all Indiana youth at the same time, is cutting public health funding.

So, I mean, there are certainly some prioritization that, you know, some people won't agree with.

But yeah, I mean, there's not a lot to, like, jump up and down about in the budget.

I will, I will.

This is, I think, part of the thing that I'm struggling with as we try to talk about what is what what is the effect of this budget, which is you kind of alluded to to just now with it.

We can't I was I was watching that committee hearing where a sheriff was talking.

He was about the immigration bill, which we're going to talk about next.

And the sheriff kind of offhandedly said, and by the way, we just found out we're not getting any money anymore for the people we house for the state.

Oops.

And Representative Greg Steuerwald was like, hold on, let's stop everything else.

What did you just say?

And then, you know, so I think this there's there's an indication that lawmakers want fix.

The Department of Corrections to confirm that.

yeah.

But this this goes to Governor Braun is saying he needs to slash state government spending and this budget is built.

His budget and this budget is built in part on cutting most state agencies 5%.

Not all of them, some of them were flat.

Some of them had to have to grow.

Some go away altogether.

Yeah, but yeah, but do we know what the impact of all of these state agency cuts will actually mean for Hoosiers?

No.

I mean, and I'm not sure to be honest about it.

We even know what the budget's going to look like.

So much of it is going to be dependent upon the updated forecast in April.

And certainly it's important to go through this process and to hold the hearings and to hone the budget here and trim it there and add to it there.

That is the process.

But as a practical matter, we really won't see the the closest thing or the to the finished product.

Until then I would think, and it's, it's, I'd say a realistic budget.

I thought you summed it up well, Niki, by saying there aren't a lot of people jumping up and down with joy.

oh, maybe that's.

People who got a flat budget were jumping up.

And jump up and down with joy.

And it's, But it is it's an interesting sort of theme that we see here, the concern about what the federal government is doing because the federal government may pull back their by forcing states to inherit a greater a burden financially.

And what do we see in the General Assembly, state lawmakers pulling back or at least at the edges, pulling back or not growing in a way that locals can therefore pick up the slack?

So now I'm sure municipal government is saying where we just got to find the next layer down because we're going to sock it to them pretty well.

What is it then?

Something rolls downhill.

Anyway.

House Republicans approved a bill this week to give the attorney general more power to go after businesses that employ undocumented immigrants.

Critics say the unnecessary bill will lead to racial profiling and cause widespread terror in immigrant communities.

Deputy Attorney General Blake Lanning says the AG's office needs more authority to investigate businesses that might be employing undocumented immigrants, something he says creates real problems For public safety, for public resources, and also for American workers who are in some places, in some cases, displaced.

Alliance for Latino Migrant Advocacy co-founder Carolina Castoreno says the data doesn't support that.

Crime rates are lower among immigrant populations, and the unemployment rate is higher.

The majority of what is behind this bill, what is driving this bill is anti Latino immigrant sentiment.

Businesses would have a defense against the attorney general's investigation if they took steps to verify their employees eligibility.

Ann DeLaney, what's wrong with going after businesses who are exploiting workers.

So do you think that the attorney general is marching into businesses because he wants to improve, increase the pay for those workers?

Is that what this is all about?

No, it's not okay.

And first of all, that's an incompetent office to do this for a variety of reasons.

I mean, they've been disciplined by the courts twice already to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties because of either their incompetence or outright falsification.

Not clear which.

And now we want to go and do this and it it it is all part of the Christian nationalist agenda.

It isn't it isn't good anymore to say that you hate Catholics or you hate Jews or you hate blacks.

That's, that's that's not good anymore.

So you could put all that hate on immigrants, which of course include a number of people in those three categories, and you hate them and you're going to go after them and you're going to penalize them.

This is something the federal government is supposed to be dealing with.

And I think we elected that person who's now the president, because he was going to solve this entire problem.

Why do we need the Todd Rokita of this world to do anything?

The problem is going to be completely solved, just like inflation is going to be completely solved.

We have Donald the felon, Trump in charge.

The other the other big Trump, the other big the other big piece of this bill is, Indiana law already requires local law enforcement agencies and local governments to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

This takes it a little further.

And basically, empowers local law enforcement agencies and particulars to act essentially as federal immigration officers.

is that and should that be the role of local law enforcement agencies who last I checked, we're not exactly under burden.

Yeah.

And I think that's been a like it's been really fascinating to see how they feel about these bills.

I know a lot of the times they're neutral.

And then whenever you ease the burden a little bit, they'll move in support.

But I think their whole thing or their whole saying the whole time has been, we're already doing this.

And I think that's the crux of a lot of these immigration bills is that we're already doing this.

And if you want to say it's a politics move, you can but I don't really see anything wrong with with clarifying it.

And really just the, the whole balance of this whole issue's been fascinating to see because you have, on the one hand, the GOP saying we are a no tolerance illegal immigration, which I think that's important to clarify.

We're talking about illegal immigration here, not just regular immigration, but then you also have the other side.

Like I thought it was fascinating that a lot of Democrats try to offer amendments to actually add criminal provisions for these businesses.

And then the you know, the response was, we're just kind of reflecting what's going on, across the country when it comes to the, the enforcement mechanisms.

But then you also have bills, like there's been a provision in the Senate the past couple of years that have been trying to give undocumented immigrants driving cards just as a partizan.

But we recognize that this is happening.

And if it does, you know, affect people that are here legally.

We want to make sure there's a mechanism to take care of those people.

So it's a really interesting balance to see the, you know, no tolerance.

We need to, you know, you know, write out the little illegal immigrants versus the this is happening.

And we need to put more tools into, you know, the toolbox for people that are here legally.

Is the bill at this point largely it's I mean, it does give the attorney general new powers to to to investigate businesses.

There's no question that's new authority.

it gives the governor the power to withhold any and all state funding he'd like for up to a year from any local government or local law enforcement agency that is deemed to not be sufficiently complying with federal immigration officials.

but when you consider what local governments seem to already be doing, is this more about messaging than it is about actual policy?

I think clearly it's about messaging, because a lot of these things were already in place if in fact, and if being the operative word there, this were really a sincere attempt to deal with exploited workers and protect them.

There were numerous safeguards in place, at the state and certainly at the federal level in terms of, Department of Labor or OSHA, in terms of safety, if you're being put in unfair, unsafe conditions.

Civil Rights Commission now, now, grant you at the federal level, a lot of those programs may not exist.

Made it so maybe this there is I may have to just take back everything I said.

but I don't think this is clearly about exploited workers.

And it is interesting if you talk about empowering all of these, officials to that didn't have the power to go in and essentially inspect private businesses before.

Think of how offensive it was when these same businesses, were being asked to enforce federal law as it related to vaccinations and health guidelines.

And in that case, many of the same lawmakers who want people going in to apprehend people who don't look like us, perhaps, didn't want any officials going into these same private businesses.

That is an encroachment upon, you know, our fundamental belief that private businesses can control their own operations.

Yet another example.

Of situational ethics, Which is all we have anymore.

Oh, there's a difference there between, you know, vaccines being.

Because there.

Versus there versus somebody being in the country illegally.

There's there's a difference there between going into.

Different there was a lot of mobilization around this bill from folks who were opposed to it.

the original bill would have gone considerably farther, right?

Yeah.

They removed the language that would have had schools basically tallying up possible illegal migrants and reporting that information to the feds.

I think there was, you know, an outcry about politicizing kind of the school, which is like a safe place for a child.

Right.

And those kids are there.

They have no control over how they got here, where they're going, you know, and so they remove that.

The other language in the bill that I think does go a little further than current is, has to do with the detainers.

Like right now, they don't technically have to follow an Ice detainer.

And I thought it was a very interesting conversation about these detainers, which are 48 hours additional time, other that you would be able to hold them.

Right.

Is that those are not approved by a judge like a warrant is for a crime.

And so those are just an Ice agent who thinks that person may or may not be illegal.

So there was a lot of concern about some counties already.

They do honor those detainers.

And then Ice never comes and picks the person up and there is concern about, you know, they're basically their liability for for holding these people.

And so that was another discussion.

All right.

Time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we post an unscientific online poll question.

This week's question is should Indiana's local law enforcement agencies play a bigger role in helping enforce federal immigration laws?

A yes or b no.

Last week, we asked you whether Indiana should make significant cuts to the Medicaid program to help bring down costs.

Just 18% of you say yes, 82% say no.

If you'd like to take part in the poll, go to WFYI.org/i y wire and look for the poll Well governor Mike Braun this week said he'll veto major property tax reform legislation if it doesn't “improve as the session continues.” Legislative leaders say that threat makes their work more difficult.

The initial property tax measure was Braun's proposal rolling back homeowners property tax bills to 2021 levels while costing local governments and schools billions of dollars.

The version the Senate passed is more targeted at older Hoosiers, disabled veterans and first time homebuyers, providing 1.4 billion in tax savings over three years.

Senate GOP Leader Rodric Bray says Braun's veto threat brings challenges.

But we're going to keep our head down and try to try and craft a policy that works for state of Indiana.

Senate Democratic Leader Shelli Yoder says Braun has put his party in a pickle.

To that, I would say, well, welcome to what it's like to, not always get your way.

The legislative session will resume March 3rd.

Niki, are you surprised at Governor Braun threatening threatening a veto at this stage?

Yeah, I thought it might.

Might wait till at least we see the house Republican version out of committee.

But, you know, he is throwing down the gantlet, and he's making clear that he wants actual cuts, not just slowing the growth.

fascinating though, because obviously, if they pass a bill, they can easily override him.

And there's nothing that says they can't just come in and gavel out.

So there's no actual, you know.

Nothing such a weak veto for.

It and for a special session even.

Yeah, you can call them in, but.

They don't have to do it.

Yeah.

Exactly.

What do you make of Governor Braun kind of planting his flag at this stage of session on.

This isn't good enough.

Well, I think when you run on something in the fashion that he did, which was this was issue number one, issue number two, issue number three, essentially, if you added if you did that word map of what he talked about during the, during the campaign, I'm sure that's the big word.

Yeah.

property tax relief.

So, I mean, in a way, he was already people are thinking now he's backing himself into a corner, but he was already there.

and I think in terms of the political style points, if he vetoes it, he still can say he vetoed it.

And I think in every likelihood it will be overridden.

And I remember, this is because both parties.

But Evan Bayh vetoed a 11th our budget in 93. and and saying it was going to be horrible, that budget.

I don't think it was five minutes before, it was overturned and and and it's just there was no qualms or compunction because I think that was preferable to the state closing down.

And I think.

Well, I mean, it's the reality of, of the veto power of the Indiana governor is is weak if they pass, if they if a bill got to his desk, they've got the votes to override.

He does still get to say I veto which which is.

A victory is how much more challenging to to the point Ron made.

How much more challenging does this make the conversation in the rest of session?

I think it adds certainly add challenges, but I actually don't think it changes too much.

I think historically, you've always seen the Senate be the chamber that's typically more conservative is not the right word, but like kind of more reserved when it comes to, you know, the big hitting issues that you like to see.

So I think it's fascinating that he decided to do it.

Now there is even like some, some media, some, social media strategy kind of trying to put on pressure for senators there.

Yeah.

and it's just so fascinating to see the two philosophies of that, both that I think they both think they're trying to win the hearts of Hoosiers.

When they say your local government needs to make tax cuts so you can get more in the money, versus the state government saying, we don't want to cut your police and your services and things like that.

And I think both are so confident that those messages are resonating with their constituents that you might not see either either turn either team back down.

And I think it's going to be really interesting because it's it's all just a negotiating tactic at this point.

Chris brings up a really interesting point, which was, social media advertising around this issue, paid for by Brauns, the private organization that they set up, the governor set up to, to raise money for, for things, and do policy work.

is that going to engender like, is that going to sour the relationship that so far has been seemingly working really well between Governor Braun in the legislature and certainly the Republicans in the legislature?

Is that risking souring that relationship?

Well, whenever you target, which was what he's trying to do, you always bear the risk that somebody is going to get offended and come from a pro Braun to an anti Braun status.

But the the bigger problem is that Braun is backed himself into a corner with the promises that he made in that campaign.

He cannot deliver a rollback to 2021.

It can't okay.

It can't.

It's not it's not you know he can't because it's not massive.

It's not.

Realistic.

It is not.

You'd have massive police and fire layoffs everywhere.

And it just is not going to happen.

And the problem is he doesn't like that.

Well, tough.

He should have looked at the fiscal before he ever proposed.

And as long as they keep insisting on cutting the income taxes, they can't do what they need to do to provide property tax relief.

And that's going to be a problem for Braun going forward.

All right.

The House advanced a bill this week that aims to address Indiana's road funding needs, but multiple provisions that would have generated new revenue were eliminated from the measure.

The original bill would have allowed counties to create a new tax on retail deliveries.

It also would have required private companies to help pay for infrastructure needs in order to receive state economic development benefits.

Those provisions were stripped out of the legislation bill.

Author Republican Representative Jim Pressel says the initial measure was meant to provide a plate of options, and my goal was really to start multiple conversations good, bad or indifferent.

Democratic Representative Carey Hamilton proposed increasing the state's excise tax rate, which she says hasn't been raised in decades.

I hope that we will continue to look for new ideas to bring dollars to the table.

The bill does include language, making it easier for the state to begin tolling interstate highways, and it requires local communities to adopt wheel and excise taxes to be eligible for some state road funding.

Jon, does Indiana need bolder road funding?

Answers?

if we're going to have cars on the road, I mean, I guess we could all go rails to trails and ones I song.

I mean, I, I'm no expert on I'm not a civil engineer, but I, I listen to what people like Perdue that does produce a good number of people like this who say we were already locals were already in the hole to the tune of $500 million, not to expand or beautify, but just to keep the current bridges and roads at the local level in place.

And we've, as we've discussed, if we've discussed anything in recent weeks and months, it's about locals being squeezed, not and having extra money on their hands.

you know, there are suggestion that's a good thing, probably for the municipal, for the larger urban areas because of the changing way in which mileage is calculated, But only for one program.

And one program.

I mean, it doesn't increase the overall funding, but it helps for those for those areas.

but I, I can't help but chuckle a little bit when Carey Hamilton talks about maybe it's time to bring up the excise tax, which person of her own party that Ann knew well, Evan Bayh targeted as the most hated tax in Indiana and I think it was.

I think it's still kind of his.

Tax.

Well, I guess it's a revolving door, but, I mean, people did hate that then.

And if it came back, they'd probably hate.

It now, are they with this bill or are they kind of kicking the can down the road?

Absolutely.

These are all just tweaks around the edge.

It doesn't increase the pot in any appreciable way.

It's trying to force them to raise taxes, local income taxes.

Yeah.

All right.

Finally, a bill that did not survive the first half of session is a measure that would have named the persimmon as the state fruit of Indiana Chris Mitchem, how big an opportunity did we miss out on here?

I, as somebody who's never had one, and I don't know that you probably don't get me a lot of players.

Maybe.

But my favorite part about that was you had, you know, the third graders come in and present the bill.

And I think that they learned the, you know, the.

The hard lesson?

The hard lesson of the legislature that I'm sorry that you did a great job presenting your bill, and you probably had the support, but your bill just didn't move.

Well, did you see the strike in the third grade pack?

It was minimal.

They could not unless.

The third graders.

And the third graders get a pack with some zeros behind the dollar sign.

They got it heard.

That's some stuff that, other other advocates can't say, but.

I went to the covered bridge Festival a couple of years ago and had, some persimmon pudding.

I think it.

Was an ice cream at the, cover.

I'll be honest, I don't know if I did.

I didn't love it.

I didn't love persimmons.

Do we have?

Yeah, I'm not sure.

We had a lot of other options in Indiana.

I have to have a fruit.

Either that's Indiana we can review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Ann DeLaney Republican.

Chris Mitchem, Jon Schwantes of Indiana Lawmakers and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capital 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 Week in Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.