Indiana slashes its pre-K program, calls for Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett to resign.

Plus, concerns about managed care for those over 60 and more from the television studios.

FYI, it's Indiana we can review the week ending June 13th, 2025.

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

This week, some Indiana children will not be able to join the state funded preschool program next year, and that's because Indiana will slash the available seats to less than half of the current enrollment figures, Dylan Pierce McCoy reports.

Advocates worry the cap will hurt many families.

On my way pre-K pays for four year olds from low income families to go to preschool.

Indiana used temporary federal stimulus money to expand the program in recent years.

These funds ran out, and state Republicans chose not to fill the gap.

Hanan Osman leads the Indiana Association for the Education of Young Children.

It's going to be a huge setback for Indiana because it took us a long time to build the systems, and then suddenly we are not going to be able to feed the system.

State officials told Wfyi in an email that the cap was necessary because the program had grown without sustainable funding.

((**ON CAM**)) How will Indiana scaling back its pre-k program impact children and the workforce?

It's the first question for our Indiana Week in Review panel Democrat Lindsay Haake Republican Whitley Yates 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 and I have a correction from last week's show.

It was said on last week that I was off because I was celebrating my 89th birthday.

That is, of course, absurd.

I turned 87.

Whitley.

Republican legislative leaders have, for a while now been urging private employers to basically start their own pre-K programs for their workers.

Does something like this put even more pressure on the private sector to do so?

Absolutely.

Because childcare is not going to be solved solely at the state level.

And the Republicans are really asking for them to come up with solutions to meet the workforce that's ever changing where they are.

And then we have to look at this kind of circumspectly, right?

We had a bloated budget during Covid and they expanded programs.

What we can't do is build these programs off of temporary dollars.

And I think one of the things that this administration is trying to do is choosing sustainability over symbolism, because what you don't want to do for vulnerable families is throw some house of cards together, call it policy when it's something that they need, and they are still investing over $21 million into the program.

And so I think it will be the private sector that will step up and meet the needs of the workforce.

In those last couple of flush budgets, there was a lot of one time spending because they got all of this federal money for Covid relief, and that freed up things in their regular budget.

Plus, the state coffers were were more than full in terms of the revenue we were bringing in.

And they always say it's got to be one time spending because to the point we just made, if you do something that's ongoing and then things get tight, well, now you have to get rid of those things.

Things have gotten tight.

Is this unnecessary consequence of rightsizing the budget?

Is this a necessary consequence?

No, I this is a priority that we're committed to in Indiana.

At least that's what we've been told, right?

And so now the demand for the program has exceeded our ability to fulfill the the program's abilities.

That is, and we heard advocates this week decry these changes.

And you heard parents, parents who are ready to go with their kid enrolled in Indianapolis, IPS for next year, pre-K, who are now faced with a budgetary problem at home, who cannot pay for this and have no idea where to face next.

So there's a big problem and it needs to be addressed.

I'm not sure where we're going to start over at the state House, but something needs to happen.

Republicans have long been really, really hesitant to devote many state resources to pre-K because they clearly just didn't want to.

Didn't want to get into it because it's really expensive.

From the state's perspective, is this.

Is this just the state isn't going to be the one to look to?

There's a couple of things that come to mind here.

First of all, the dichotomy of will pay 12 years of free high school, a free K-12, you know, funding for vouchers for anyone, no matter what.

We won't even pay one year of pre-K for, you know, low to moderate income folks.

so that's a little bit of an interesting, you know, comparison.

But also I kind of feel like, look, this started as a pilot program.

We've continued it, but we haven't grown it except for the one time money, which I understand.

It's a fair point that, you know, we can't continue using that money is not there anymore, and so we don't have any way to pay for it.

But I do think lawmakers should actually, like, make a decision, like, are we going to invest in this and make it, you know, available for all Hoosiers?

Or is it time to just punt and and say you don't like the program and, you know, just move on?

I mean.

With the conversation because we've heard time after time after time, Republican lawmakers that both in the both the House and Senate say that this is a priority for them.

Right.

And here we are.

Well, we we know that the data is there to show that pre-K education leads to better results for students down the line.

We also know increasingly, I mean, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce will be the first to tell you that what's keeping a lot of people, particularly women, out of the workforce, is a lack of affordable childcare.

Can lawmakers I mean, it feels like, you know, to the question that or to the point that Nikki just made about lawmakers need to decide ultimately whether or not to give up on this entirely?

It feels like we're just about there anyway.

But is that is that going to work for Indiana's long term health as a state between its children and its workforce?

We had heard the phrase childcare crisis uttered by lawmakers now for 2 or 3 years.

this was going to be a priority that needed to be fixed and obviously financial circumstances, to a certain extent changed.

And so the landscape changed.

And I guess you have to give some folks an out there.

But I think that the impact potentially could be.

We talk about the numbers.

You know, it's will be 2500 instead of the 6000 or 7000.

I think it maybe peaked almost close to 8000 enrollment.

But then also you have a decrease in the potentially in the amounts that are given, I believe two for the reimbursements or for the vouchers.

so you may have places that say, you need to make up the difference, dear parents, and you may or may not have the money.

And so that job that you were holding on to precariously while you had, free care in the case, for instance, of IEPs, will now come with, with some strings attached.

So there are a couple things there.

I guess the, it's another example.

And in fairness, the governor in his budget did have more funding for these programs.

Yeah.

And it wasn't checkers.

And lawmakers didn't do it.

So it is interesting now, instead of blaming the General Assembly, and obviously we don't think that's going to happen.

The fault now lies as so many things do, apparently.

And in the parlance of today, with Eric Holcomb's administration for allowing things to sort of mushroom out of control.

So that's I'm sure that's, you know, the default setting now.

Who do we blame?

Oh, wait.

Eric Holcomb.

Well, I think we're going to see that in the topic coming up, but not this one, which is Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett is facing increasing calls to resign, including from three city county councilors, two of them Democrats, after the Indianapolis Star published a series of late night text messages from Hogsett to women at the heart of an investigation into the mayor's handling of sexual harassment and assault allegations against his former chief of staff.

An attorney for Carolyn Ellard and Lauren Roberts says a recent report from a law firm hired by the city to investigate Hawks its handling of allegations against former chief of staff Thomas Cook, left off key details and evidence provided by the women, the star reported.

That includes text messages from Hogsett that the two women say made them uneasy and uncomfortable.

Roberts was forcibly removed from a city county council meeting this week after council president Bob Bosley said she exceeded their time limit to speak, later reportedly said he regrets doing so.

Hogsett is resisting calls to resign.

Fellow Democrats have said the mayor has broken the public's trust, and Hogsett told Mirror Indy he'll regain it by continuing to lead the city in new and exciting ways.

Lindsay, should Joe Hogsett resign?

I just don't see how Mayor Hogsett can't resign.

He's had members of the clergy this week call on him to resign.

He's had member of his members of his own council, his own council's party.

Ask him to resign.

He's had members of the Indiana General Assembly ask him to resign.

This is a commentary that just has to be with Joe Hogsett right now.

How does he, in good conscience, continue to be mayor when it's so clear to so many leaders and so many in the in the nonprofit and the faith sectors to to head out.

To, does Joe Hogsett need to actually let me put it this way.

I'm guessing you think Joe Hogsett should resign.

Should Joe Hogsett or will will Joe Hogsett resign?

Absolutely not.

I don't think he should have ran for the third term.

I think there are many people within his administration that knew what was happening and hoped that the administration would change over, but he wanted to hoard and hold on to that power.

I understand why wasn't many places for him to go.

but now that we've seen what has happened to women that have worked in his administration, this is bigger than just the optics of this politically.

This is about accountability for those that are survivors of assault.

And I think for him to be the leader that he claims to be, to be the clergy, that he so often reminds us that he is to do the right thing and go ahead and step down.

If you want to give Joe Hogsett any benefit of the doubt in terms of why he wants to stay in power, it's because he thinks he can continue to do good things for the city of Indianapolis.

Let's let's give him, I suppose, that benefit of the doubt.

Well, presumably he thinks that's in part because of his political party and that political parties values and beliefs.

You're risking the ability of Democrats to remain in power at the top of the city of Indianapolis.

If you don't resign and let some acknowledgment that that this is unacceptable, right?

I'm not sure about that necessarily.

I think that the demographics and the political makeup now of, of the city is such that it would not be as clear cut as you're suggesting.

would it have an impact?

Sure, sure.

But I'm not sure that you can connect a and not be necessarily there.

Ultimately, there are people certainly calling for him to resign.

I'm sure he's keeping a close eye.

Yes.

And what lawmakers, general or some members of the General Assembly say yes on the faith community, but also keeping a very close eye, perhaps on the council itself, because that's, as far as I know, only two.

Three.

Three, three.

Three councilors, two of them Democrats and another who's saying they're considering calling on him to resign, at least right now.

Right.

And if but there's.

A snowball effect that also happens.

It's true.

That is true.

And it and that's where I think what will be most telling if if, if the two Democrats, are joined by others.

Yeah.

Then that that's where the difference comes.

I think that's the sort of the barometer right now that will be most telling.

It's a bipartisan so far.

Yeah.

So far it's by.

Bain also calling for the resignation.

Well, you can you can you can argue you can easily argue compelling.

Though.

If Democrats aren't.

Absolutely.

I want to talk a little bit about that.

Possibly.

I.

Have something to say about Mayor.

Joe.

Talk about talking about Mayor Joe first.

I mean, there's obviously the moral imperative question, but I tend to look at things practically, which is regardless of whether you think he did anything wrong or it's worth resigning if he doesn't have the actual political power to do anything in the office, because he's hamstrung with this scandal that's been going on for like a year, then, you know, practically it might be time to then now what do you even know?

Well, I want to I want to talk a little bit about Bob and his handling of this situation, which blew up even further, understandably.

rightfully.

a lot of people, I think I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Indianapolis politics, but it seems from my position, a lot of people considered VOP one of the frontrunners to become the next mayor of Indianapolis, obviously not expecting Hogsett to to run for another term.

This is going to be his swan song.

And what a swan song it's turning out to be.

But has VOP done serious damage to his potential to be that frontrunner?

Yeah, I mean, I think definitely it was mishandled.

I have to be honest, I was not at the meeting.

I've seen differing explanations in various media accounts whether she was cut off because of the topic or the length of time.

Regardless, I think I would have to say no one has to say anything, and then you move on.

But he turned it into a massive, massive story.

And he quickly came out and apologized, said he was.

Wrong.

I wouldn't say it was more than 24 hours, and it was literally like an hour before you had a pre-game starting for the Pacers, you know?

So it was very cleverly designed to come out without a lot of attention on it.

it was box checking from my standpoint.

I really hope that, you know, when folks are wrong, they need to come out.

Crisis comes first.

Your your first lesson in crisis comes is tell the truth and tell it quickly.

And you buried it.

And that was the the mistake behind if we want to turn this into a process story.

But aside from that, I think you had such a misstep in how is handled.

I have been in so many hearings, along with many of you, where I have obviously been the very lone voice on some of these issues.

And, you know, you just get up, you say it really quickly.

And even the House majority at the state House has allowed everyone to speak.

They read, they try to read the rules.

Exactly.

You read the room, you move the the conversation forward.

And that's that is also a personal problem here.

We're talking about the political ramifications of the person in power not allowing for her to speak, but you have to think about the victim in this who hasn't had the opportunity to speak.

And now being publicly removed or publicly touched again in ways that she was literally screaming, do not touch me.

And so I think that there are some personal, traumas that are now coming from this being also publicized, as well as some political fallout.

That's right.

Exacerbated, too, by also the fact that they've learned all the survivors have learned instances and details about this past week and all of the proceedings from the media.

They had no outreach from these individuals who they had previously had contact with, and there was nothing.

It's a reminder to that being holding people out of public meetings never gets a good look.

And it and it's only going to get, our sensitivity to it, I think as a society will be heightened.

And it's cutting both ways.

I mean, we saw instance this week where a sitting U.S. senator was removed from, a meeting, with Senator Norm.

So and this is happening now across the country and lawsuits are coming out not because of anything other than the physical removal.

And some cities are having to pay settlements so that we're sensitive to it now.

But it'll be even more problematic going forward.

And time now for viewer feedback each week we put an unscientific online poll question, and this week's question is should Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett resign a yes or b no?

Last week we asked you whether Governor Braun's changes are good for Indiana University.

Just 10% of you say yes, 90% say no.

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

The top official at the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration says the state's new long term care program for Medicaid members over 60 hasn't met expectations, as Indiana Public Broadcasting's Abigail Woman reports.

That statement contradicts claims the agency made under the previous administration, but aligns with concerns providers have raised.

The pathways for aging program shifted Medicaid members over 60 into health plans managed by health insurance companies.

FSA Secretary Mitch Robe says the state will end up paying those companies more than $300 million overbudget this year.

Says he never would have pursued a program like this because it doesn't make sense for the population it serves.

It's very difficult for managed care companies to to manage the care of individuals who are in nursing homes.

And what is the value add?

They can they can have.

Rope says managed care works for pregnant people or people without disabilities because their care is more predictable.

But he says vulnerable populations often have more expensive and less predictable care needs.

Nikki Kelly The state invested a lot of time and importantly, money switching to managed care.

Is it a good thing, though, that Mitch Robe is saying that was all a bad idea?

Well, I mean, he's giving his opinion.

These were certainly concerns that were brought up when when we moved to managed care from advocates, from media, from, you know, lots of people were questioning the use of that in this particular population.

It can certainly work in other populations.

And we use managed care for that in other Medicaid programs.

So, you know, and I don't know how the state gets out of it, though.

I mean, you've sort of built this apparatus.

we're not getting the savings where we're going to owe them deficit payments.

I mean, it's kind of a mess.

Good thing is, though, Mitch Robe knows how to deal with a messy government.

He got isn't one years ago when we tried to privatize Medicaid and, A mess of his own, we.

Yeah.

Got out and he they eventually recognized it was a mistake and they had to move forward.

I think honesty is always good from state leaders.

So kudos to Mitch Rogue for coming in and saying, listen, we're walking into this.

And it's also politically easy for him to do because as you pointed out a couple of weeks ago, he can say those guys, which we don't have much of a connection to beyond our political party, we don't like what they did.

But at this point, without turning the boat around, does that does his candor matter?

Well, candor is always good.

I appreciate that on the part of public officials.

but a lot of this seems to be, he may be.

I can't tell if he's ahead of the curve or behind.

If you look, because this states are moving in unison on a lot of these things, is the momentum involved?

If you look at it based on statistics from people who study this thing and know a lot more about it than I like the Kaiser Family Foundation, which looked at, for instance, sort of the emergence and the growth in popularity of these programs at the nursing home level, say from, you know, we goes back to 2004, maybe, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah.

If you want to look that so they looked at 2005, up to 15 years subsequent to that, and it went from eight states up to about 24 states, I think.

Then 2 or 3 more, added on after that.

But now Indiana, I don't think if I understood correctly, North Dakota, I don't know.

They're not often a league leader, leader of the pack in many regards, I don't suppose.

But the other states have decided that this is not the way to go.

Now, the reasons sometimes are financial.

Other times it's pushback from, providers who say the system is so screwed up now I can't get paid and we're going to go out of business.

Or from the recipients who say, this isn't this is not working because I'm your pension.

I'm a number, your pension, pennies in a way that is affecting and perhaps my care and putting me at risk.

Reversing course, as Nikki pointed out, is going to take a lot of time and probably cost a lot of money.

but and, you know, we know that as Nikki also pointed out, a lot of people were saying a while ago that this was not the right decision, but at this point, is it the right move, even if it's going to cost you a little bit in the short.

Term, I do believe it's the right move.

This was supposed to be efficient and it became very expensive.

We're thinking that there's supposed to be managing care.

They're running up tabs, and then it's our seniors that are at the expense of these types of decisions with worse outcomes than before.

And so I don't think that we really have an opportunity to not write this vote, no matter the cost.

but I do think it is commendable for them to say this wasn't right and we're going to fix it.

But the question that we have to ask now is, how will our seniors and our most vulnerable population weather this storm.

That I really like that question.

That's the question I'm going to put to you, how you whether the state decides to reverse course or tries to make the best out of the situation they've been given, what's going to happen to those folks during this sort of transitory period?

We've seen left and right throughout the entire legislative session how we were trying the visible, in accommodating the conversation we've had from both the area agencies on aging the McKees, everyone was at the table having this conversation.

Right.

And then what happened after that?

Well, Humana's pulled out.

They've also notified some of their vendors.

They no longer have contracts.

So people aren't getting care.

They need the self determination.

Part of this is really important.

Slamming folks into a nursing home or managed care is not necessarily the best outcome for each individual.

In fact, I would say arguably it's not ever the priority that you have from the family.

It's wanting to have that self-determination at home.

And so when those situations can't happen here, that's where the conversation gets tough.

And yes, absolutely, lawmakers were part of this conversation last year.

You had a clear, chairman of the former chairman of the House Public Health Committee warning this was going to happen, raising the red flag on pathways, raising the red flag on how all of this and the MTS drama was, was going to impact Hoosiers negatively had cleared.

Notably, the former chairman of House Public Health.

State agencies likely face more cuts in the upcoming fiscal year because of spending requirements from the legislature.

Included in the new budget, almost every state agency already received a 5% funding cut in the new state budget.

But language in the budget bill also requires every state agency and public college and university to withhold an additional 5% of their funding for each of the next two fiscal years.

That's not an uncommon practice in Indiana, as the government often looks to revert money back to its coffers at the end of each fiscal year.

This language is a little different in that agencies and higher education institutions won't have their usual flexibility to determine where that money will come from.

The budget bill says the 5% hold backs must come from salaries, wages and operating expenses.

And in a recent memo, state Budget Director Chad Ramey says agencies shouldn't expect to get that money back.

Josh is wearing a tight budget.

Why gives state agencies less flexibility to manage their budgets at a time like this?

That's a good question.

I'm not an accountant, but you would think that, this is a time for creativity and and somebody who's intimately familiar with his or her agency being able to say, you know, I think we could rob from this, Peter to to pay that Paul right now, we're already seeing layoffs, small numbers, but, I mean, and where they're happening, it's big impact on certain agencies, such as the state library and state has, The school for the deaf.

Yeah, school for the deaf.

So it's it's.

Been forced as an agency to do more with less.

Well, there is language that, that that says, well, if they don't want to withhold, you know, this extra money, they can come to the state budget agency.

But the budget director saying don't expect any of this money ever.

So is it really more flexible?

It's less.

Flexible.

I don't understand that point of the argument.

We've had reversions before.

It's not anything new, but the agency heads can look at their whole budget and say, this is where I'm going to save this amount.

And it seems like they've pinned them in with less options.

And I don't really understand that.

We'll have more to talk about that next week.

But finally, the Indiana Pacers are up two games to one in the NBA finals of the Oklahoma City Thunder with game four in Indy tonight Friday.

As we tape this Lindsey, can the underdog Pacers win this whole thing?

Yes 100%.

And the Pacers win the whole thing.

They will win the whole.

They will win I like to win.

Put it down the Nikki.

Yes, but only if I don't watch it because they don't do.

Well when I watch the Pacers come the whole time.

Yeah I mean Oklahoma is so good, but the Pacers seem really good at taking away the things that make teams like that really good.

And that is Indiana Week in Review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Lindsay Haake Republican Whitley Yates Jon Schwantes of Indiana Lawmakers and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capital Chronicle at wfyi.org/iwir or on the PBS App.

Im Brandon Smith because a lot can happen in an Indiana Week The views expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indian Weekend Review is produced by.

Wfyi.

In association with Indiana.

Public Broadcasting.

Stations.