Welcome to Politically Speaking.

I'm Elizabeth Bennion, chancellor's professor of political science and director of community engagement at Indiana University South Bend.

The Indiana legislature is in its final week, and before they adjourn, legislators must pass a budget containing funding for the state for the next two years.

Joining us today to discuss the final week of a 2023 legislative session are Indiana State Senate Democratic Minority Leader Greg Taylor and State Senator Rodney Paul.

Thank you both for being here.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you.

I want to start, Senator Taylor, by asking you the current state of the legislative process, considering that the legislature does have a statutory deadline or end date of April 29th.

Things must be pretty busy there in Indianapolis.

Yeah, we're going to have the only requirement that we have here in the state of Indiana is that we pass a bi annual budget.

That has to be done by April 29.

Currently, that budget has gone through two really reiterations.

You had one House bill 1001, as we call it, started in the House.

There were some changes made in the Senate and now it's down to, you know, conference committee, which is where both the House and the Senate get together and discuss different changes that they're going to make to the proposal.

And that proposed compromise or whatever you want to call it, should be out sometime later today and hopefully we'll be finished with it prior to the deadline of April 29th.

I'm predicting, you know, maybe Wednesday of next week we'll kind of work out any kinks that are in there and move forward.

Senator Pol, are you eagerly awaiting the results of that conference committee?

And at that point, what's left for you to do as a member of the Senate?

Yes.

So this is my first budget session and I've luckily got some really great mentors that have kind of helped me along.

Senator Taylor being top one.

He's really great leader.

It's kind of really helped me with the process.

But yeah, I'm very much anticipating how that conference committee is going to go.

There were we you know, our caucus had a number of really good amendments to the budget on second reading, you know, and we got a couple of them in, but not nearly as many or not nearly as many substantive ones that I believe we we really wish we could have.

And then with the revenue forecast, I think we we have hope that, you know, some of those amendments might might end up getting in there.

And our hope is that, you know, as that conference committee report comes out, you know, there's going to be still some room for discussion before everything is said and done.

Senator Pol, did you give maybe one or two examples of things that actually made it into the final proposals here to the conference committee and things that you wish had made it but didn't?

You know, we did have some education funding was it wasn't you know, we were hoping to at least match inflation, ensure that we're providing, you know, our students here in our Hoosier students every opportunity to afford them, you know, the ability to learn in the best environments possible, you know, including making sure that, you know, one of the things we were wanting is elimination of textbook fees and the budget to finally remove the burden from families.

Ultimately, you know, and and schools that we're providing those to to our students.

But obviously, you know, we want to see it fully funded.

SB one, you know, we want to really get serious about mental health in the state, you know, kind of put our money where our mouth is on that.

Some of the things that, you know, and that I was looking at for our in particular, you know, my district up in northwest Indiana, we've got an issue with beach erosion, that we were able to get, you know, funding for the final study that we hope will provide for federal funding to actually address the issue that we're having with our beach erosion issue in northwest Indiana.

One of the other things we're really looking for is a new Ivy Tech campus.

You have the chancellors, Chancellor Sikoski has done a very great job of putting together, I believe, a really great plan for a new campus in Michigan City.

It's one it's got to be one of the oldest facilities in the entire state for higher education.

And he's got a plan for a new one that really catered to the industry in it, particularly in Michigan City, both the health care industry and the the compressed air industry as well.

And so that's one of our big hopes.

You know, and I think this last week you're going to probably see a lot of phone calls and emails and a lot of hallway, hallway discussions, you know, pushing for things like that from every every senator.

So it's very interesting and really brings home that idea of why people are elected in districts and what you're doing to try to represent the needs of that district.

Senator Taylor, I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the Democratic caucuses priorities throughout this session, but I'm also sort of heading into this final stretch.

Yeah, it's important to understand that the budget is not the only piece of legislation that we're going to be passing.

We're going to be talking about things like know, as Senator Pol talked about public health funding.

But one of the things that complement that is making sure that we have the right mental health services that are available in the community.

So there's legislation we would hope that they would that the state of Indiana would fund 100% of what was requested in the public health study that was done over the summer.

We're still in negotiations on whether or not that's going to be fully funded.

But also along with that, you have to make sure that the locals have the infrastructure to be able to handle all those services and the things that people need from a public health standpoint.

So there's legislation to hopefully fund the infrastructure for local communities who opt in to the program.

And then we've got things like I was discussing earlier.

We, I had a piece of legislation last year that created a bone marrow registry in the state of Indiana to address the lack of ability for people of color to receive bone marrow transplants, because it's just simply a matter of if you're someone in a majority community, you have 75% chance of getting a match where if you're in a minority community, you have a 45% chance of getting a match, and it just shouldn't be that way.

What we can do here in the state is create a registry that educates people on the issues related to bone marrow, the good, the bad, and the other things associated so we can start getting information out there and hopefully, you know, kind of compress that gap that you see in communities of color not having access to bone marrow.

And so those kinds of things are two other things that we tried to put forth, along with having a state budget to make sure that we're financially secure for the next two years.

You mentioned the funding of mental health.

This had been a push by Governor Holcomb and also Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch, as well as many members of your caucus, Democratic legislators did propose an additional tax on cigarettes or a 988 fee to fully fund SB one.

Can you talk a little bit more about your caucus stance and your personal stance on raising taxes or fees and when that's appropriate?

Well, you know, we've been trying to do this tobacco tax for the last several years as far as the Democratic caucus, that would raise a substantial amount of funds that can be used not only for smoking cessation issues and work issues related to that, but also could provide some more some resources for our mental health services.

I mean, we rank in the last in the bottom two in the country as far as public health as a total, and the mental health services is a part of that.

So we've come up with, from our caucus standpoint, we think, a viable resource to not only lower the number of people who are unhealthy in the state of Indiana, but also address some of the issues that we know already exist that we need to take care of before it gets any worse.

The second piece of that is that 988 it would just be a service fee on your cell phone bill every month, a dollar a month, and it would generate almost $90 million that could go through to 988 serving for 988 services or mental health services.

I just don't understand why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't think those things could should be funded.

Senator Paul, do you think the projected extra 1.5 billion in tax revenue for this state might make compromise possible where more members of the GOP might come along and fully fund SB one?

I would hope so.

I mean, you know, that's a that was much more than I think anybody was expecting.

And I'm sure there's going to be some sort of explanation as to, oh, well, you know, this is this is inflated about this or whatever.

But I mean, the facts, the facts, I mean, one point an extra 1.5 billion gives us an opportunity to get serious about a number of issues, particularly on mental health.

I mean, SB one being labeled number one demonstrates what a priority was.

And, you know, there's so many different issues that we have both in our state and our country that you hear as mental health being the boogeyman about whether that's, you know, gun violence or mass shootings, drug addiction, job loss, you know, failure to for people to get into the job market.

And it's, you know, oh, well, it's mental health, it's mental health.

If we're, you know, we have all of these societal ills that we're sitting here talking about, but we're not going to fully fund, you know, what we're setting out as a priority, then it's just talk.

You know, we have to get real and we have to really put our money where our mouth is.

So my hope is that, yes, there's there's going to be some movement with that additional funding.

Well, the Indiana Senate Republicans did release a proposed budget of 34 billion, which contained 35 million for funding mental health programs, though short of the 130 million that many people estimated it will cost.

It sounds like you're saying that 43 billion, that 130 million is sort of is needed, not 35 that you'd like to see that fully funded?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And here's here's the interesting part about it about some of the priorities that they did fund as part of the Senate GOP proposal.

They did fully fund building a new prison or upgrading a prison system.

I mean, when we get to the point where we're spending cash, that's going to be cash.

That's $800 million of cash, whereas we could finance that over 20, 25 years with our triple-A bond rating that we are so proud about.

And it would cost us a diminishable amount of money on a yearly basis.

And then you can take those resources and fully fund the mental health services.

But I guess it's it's about your priorities.

And the GOP seems to think housing people who have mental health problems is more important than taking care of the mental health problems that we already know we have.

And to me, it's a clear indication of the different priorities and the differentiation of what the Democrats would do if we were in charge versus what the GOP is going to do.

And unfortunately, if you spend less than what is required for mental health services services, it's going to be a waste of money.

You're going to find yourself behind the eight ball three years from now, four years from now, and you're going to have to pour a lot of resources into this area that you wouldn't have had done had you fully funded what we said we need.

You mentioned the funding of prisons and both of you are on the Corrections and Criminal Law Committee in the Senate.

There's been a proposed change to Indiana's constitution than it joint Resolution one, which would take away Hoosiers right to bail in most criminal cases.

Where do you stand on that particular proposal?

I was adamantly opposed to that proposal.

You know, I think Senator Taylor and I had had some really great points as to how this is actually going to play out.

I mean, ultimately, what this is doing and I think that it's hard for maybe some of our members in the chamber to understand is that when you get held without bail, you know, you're you're going to be put in jail.

You know, you get arrested and you're in jail until you either go to trial or you plead out.

And that, you know, if you ask for a speedy trial date, that might be 70 days at the earliest likely.

That means you're probably going to cheapen your defense if you even get to participate in it, you are not going to be able to afford, you know, most people would not be able to afford attorney.

It's not like they've got thousands and thousands of dollars set aside to pay an attorney.

You know while they sit in jail.

But ultimately, this is probably going to affect marginalized communities more so than any other community.

We're talking black and brown.

And I really got to give kudos to Senator Taylor.

You know, he came really prepared for the floor arguments on that, where he had pointed out, you know, you're looking at black and brown communities paying upwards of 20% extra.

You know, when bail is set as of right now, and you can expect that it's probably going to be a very similar figure that's being used when people are being held without bail more often in black and brown communities.

So I think that, you know, the way that they are attempting to address the this notion of violent crime in this way is it's going to be very dangerous because, you know, ultimately it's it's just left to this amorphous If you're a substantial risk to the community or, you know, a public, you know, to the public or a person that, you know, it's not really defined and it's not limited to the underlying it's not limited to the underlying crime as well.

So it's you don't have it.

It doesn't have to be a crime of violence.

It just could be somebody you know, a judge in particular doesn't believe that, you know, you're you're safe for their community.

And so they're going to hold you until, you know, till you go to trial, likely wrecking your life before you've even been convicted by during periods of any crime.

So what, if any, any accusations do you believe should result in somebody being held without bail?

Any.

Oh, yeah.

It's our it's already yeah, we already have.

You can be held for murder or treason in the state of Indiana if you you don't have a right to bail.

But here, here's, here's what's important.

The definition or the standard that the court would have to prove.

Although the standard is high to prove it, but here they would have to prove that you're a threat to the community as a whole.

I mean, think about what they're saying.

Someone who, for example, I don't know, writes bad checks and is a criminal from a theft standpoint, not a crime of violence, because they're a threat to the community based on what the judge has determined to be a threat to the community could be held without bail before they are convicted.

It is a scary proposition, especially when we already know that these bail systems disproportionately affect people of color.

And as I said on the floor of the Senate, why would we do this and potentially exacerbate that problem when we know that these things exist?

I mean, the author of the bill understands that disproportionately bail is used as a way to house people of majority and minority communities.

But he still feels like the court system would somehow always do a 180 and all of a sudden have this compassion and say, no, they're not going to take advantage of not being able provide bail for people who are and again, go to the basics of this.

We don't even have a definition of what it means to be a threat to the community or society as a whole.

What does that mean?

Well, and one other last point on that.

You know, we last year we passed the bill to push more of our low level offenders who are being currently held in in county jails to the D.O.C.

because our county jails are being overloaded.

There's too many people in jails, so we have to push them to D.O.C.

outside of the community in which they reside or they reside outside away from their support systems, their families that can come and visit them because they're so full.

But now we're saying, oh, in addition to that, we're also going to hold people indefinitely until they go to trial at the county level.

You know, it's just we're just packing these county county jails at this point in this effort to catch, you know, this, you know, the supposed violent criminals.

But we're not limiting it to violent criminals, so it just doesn't make it.

Now, of course, one of the issues that comes up when we talk about crime rates is not only the economy, but also education.

And, of course, education is a huge portion of the state budget.

There have been calls for more pre-K, but not so much agreement on allocating additional funding.

Can expansion occur without additional funding?

And do you expect there to be any additional funding come out of out of this session of the Indiana General Assembly?

I would hope that there would be additional funding for it.

I mean, I think every study shows the importance of pre-K for early childhood development and early childhood education.

You know, we are consistently ranking pretty low as far as, you know, what our educational attainment is in our state.

And, you know, we're that is turning into really a really low workforce if we're going to get serious about really developing and keeping kids in our state.

We're going to have to start you know, we're going to have to actually start putting money into into these programs.

So, you know, ultimately we're going we should be if we're going to be expanding it, we, we're going to have to start we're going to have to pay for it ultimately.

You know, and right now, we have such a teacher shortage in this state and we have such an educator shortage in the state and education support professionals.

So, so many of those aspects that are so important to early childhood education that, you know, we are really going to have to start respecting our teachers as well and listening to our teachers as to what they need in the classroom and what they don't need and what, you know, there's a lot of bills that we've seen over the last couple of years that have really limited the ability for teachers to be teachers, really limited the ability for teachers to connect with their students.

You know, and ultimately it's kind of, you know, if we're going to expect better results, you're going to have to really focus on both of those aspects.

You give an example of one or two of those bills that you have in mind.

Well, the we had the Senate 12, that is, you know, supposedly still somewhat alive from what we've heard.

But that's a you know, it's a bill that kind of goes after libraries as far as content that can be put in books.

You've had the anti, you know, the supposed anti CRT bills.

You've had bills that have limited the ability for teachers or essentially you know dictated that a teacher must notify parents.

You know, if a student if they if their student wants to identify as a different name regardless of you know, what the situation is, things that essentially can alienate teachers.

And you have, you know, Senate Bill 46 that's potentially still alive right now, that'll take away the ability for teachers to have those discussions as important discussions with the administration as it pertains to certain aspects of their job.

You know, what their classroom safety is like, what their class, what the class, what the curriculum is like, you know, basically things that are now required to be part of, you know, of discussions, not necessarily negotiations with contracts, but discussions with the administration.

The idea that we would take that away from teachers and expect them to be able to feel as if, you know, they have a future in education, I think is is really you know, it just doesn't make any sense.

Senator Taylor do you agree that the General Assembly may be making policies that make the teacher shortage problem worse?

Yeah, Liz I've had a I've had a bill for the last six years that simply changes one aspect of the state.

A requirement for compulsory education.

State of Indiana only requires students to go to school at age seven.

That's where one of the outliers in the country that doesn't require a child to go to school.

My bill would simply say that the compulsory age is five.

That would address a lot of issues.

Now, the state would have to fund those classrooms, of course, and we have the resources to do it.

We would no longer can we say we don't have the funding to be able to fund those things.

But also, when you talk about getting into the classroom with these teachers and not allowing them to negotiate about things like class size, I mean, can you imagine trying to teach 50 kids?

We already know we have a teacher shortage.

Can you imagine a fifth grade teacher who goes from a classroom size of 30, so to speak, up to 45 or 50 and has to perform at the same level and they can't even talk about those things.

According to Senate Bill 486, which we hope is not going to see the light of day.

And it continues to show that Indiana's at this point, we're just not serious about education now that the people on the other side of the aisle is going to say, well, we spent over 60% of our budget on education, K-12 education.

Well, maybe we need to be spending 70%.

The bottom line is we rate one of the worst states in the country for educational attainment.

And at the same time, we're promoting all these new jobs and everything we're bringing.

That's not for Hoosiers.

Let's understand those jobs are not created so that Hoosiers can, because we don't have the educational attainment to get those jobs, we're going to see people coming in from other states on the taxpayers that are in the state paying for these facilities and paying economic development incentives.

And the jobs are going to be for people outside the state of Indiana.

We live in a virtual world now.

So a person in New York is going to be is going to have a job virtually that operate for a company that operates in the state of Indiana.

And those things are reality because we don't have the educational attainment.

And I think it's going to be something we're going to have to pay for later on in life.

Now, we've talked about differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, but of course, the Senate did not.

Republicans in the Senate did not act to expand the school voucher program, despite calls from House Republicans to do so.

And Senate Republicans also wanted some of the folks wanted an accelerated plan to further cut income taxes, something that most folks in the GOP in the Senate did not go along with.

Is this a result of discussions between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate or more just a reflection of a diversity of thinking and differences in thinking within the GOP?

I think it's a combination of both.

I mean, there's no doubt in my mind that the expansion of vouchers to where they wanted to go was going to India end up creating a just a huge it's going to cost a lot of resources for the state of Indiana.

This voucher program that we had started out with very, I thought, modest reasons.

It was for students who were at poor performing schools, students who couldn't afford to go to the private schools.

And now they had an opportunity to have some of those subsidized loans to go to private schools.

Now, it's an entitlement program.

It is.

You know, we've got over 36, almost 37,000 students who are on vouchers in the state of Indiana.

And let's realize most of those students would never have been on would never have been in the public school system.

So we would have never had to pick up the bill for those students.

Well, they want to double down on that and expand it to the point where you can make up the $220,000 and you still get a voucher.

And so the expansion I'm glad my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the Senate said, hey, push back.

There's something that tells me, though, we're not done, that there's still going to be an expansion.

It may not be what they wanted, but something tells me there's going to be an expansion of vouchers in this new budget.

Viewers will have to stay tuned to see if that school Choice scholarship program does expand to this session.

I feel like we need at least another hour.

And I see, based on my clock that we are actually out of time already.

So that's all the time we have for this episode of Politically Speaking.

I want to thank our guests, Indiana Senate Democratic Minority Leader Greg Taylor and State Senator Rodney Pol.

I'm Elizabeth Bennion reminding you that it takes all of us to make democracy work.

We'll see you next time.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.