it's the second week of the Indiana General Assembly and with it comes word this morning that more than 1100 bills have been filed.

One measure is HB Tenno two .

It's a bill that House Republicans hope aligns high school more closely with the workplace and other House measures that have come under consideration so far include a renter's tax deduction for disabled veterans, a change in the formula for determining the fee to renew a watercraft registration and a new funded program through which cities would be able to apply for loans to build housing developments in the Senate a number of bills including one on consumer data protection, the creation of a two year commission to review state and local taxes and the permission for cities and towns to designate an outdoor location as a refreshment area with the approval of the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission.

We'll get the thoughts on those bills and more from our House and Senate guests tonight on this week's Prime Time.

And good evening.

I'm Bruce Haines and with us today is 15th District Republican State Senator and assistant majority floor leader for Communications Liz Brown and 18th District Republican State Representative and Assistant Majority Caucus Chair Dave Abbot.

And we invite you to join the conversation.

Just call your questions and comments.

You see the number there on the screen as we set the table and widen out there.

>> Senator Brown, Representative Albert otherwise known as Liz and Dave, a pleasure.

Thank you very much.

>> Thanks so much for having us again.

First year two weeks isn't a lot to go on on a question like this but how is the session so far moving quickly?

>> Yes, it's putting it lightly .

>> I mean it's a budget year so there's a lot besides the regular legislation you have a lot of spending issues to consider as well and thinking two of the week that was the prior week when you had the governor's state of the state address on top of the official rollout of legislative agenda priorities where the direction is folks trying to get a sense of direction and that's all part of the the organization of it all.

>> I is right to determine how other legislation that get channels its way along correct .

>> Correct.

Its it's been moving fast ever since we started down there and it continues then this week because as I mentioned one of the lead stories coming out of the state house included one that had a striking interesting chord makes your head kind of go home and that's the one about how Senator Travis Holdman is authoring the bill that would establish that two year commission to review state and local taxes.

And out in the reporting is the notion that perhaps Indiana, like other states might consider the idea of going down the path of eliminating the income tax.

>> How do you feel about that as of this hour today?

What's what's your sense of this?

I think it's a it's bold and I think we always need to sort of refresh and see what our our structure is obviously be property tax caps that are ensconced in our Constitution.

So we have to consider that the limits.

But you know, we have a sales tax and property income taxes, property taxes, local option and taxes and things like that.

So it's good to sort of step back and see what's best serving Hoosiers in our business community.

>> Who gave up on you?

Well, I think it's very interesting that option to to lower the income tax which we are doing currently now incrementally year by year but to eliminate it completely I would my question would be how we replace that.

But traditionally we've always seen that, you know, when we lower taxes we encourage growth and economic growth and we seem to make that up in other ways.

So I'm looking forward to those outcomes property tax assessments and the liability for the levy of the county very interested and to see what we can do about that that's disproportionate right now I think.

>> Yeah, it seems to have the backing of Syrian President Pro Tem Rodrique Brazo with the idea though that it would wish to be revenue neutral.

So perhaps that's the hypothesis is tested over 24 months.

>> Right.

Right.

It's going to be a good solid process before any decisions are made for sure as we look into also action from this week was House bill in to that on Wednesday heard some testimony in a Multa hour long hearing with Senator Chuck Goodrich from Noblesville sharing language with the idea of connecting the classroom more with business in communities across the state.

>> And let me ask you, Dave, when you pick up on this one first from the education side, what's going on with the.

>> Well, Chuck Goodrich I know him well.

He's a businessman, very successful and he on his own he has formed an education facilities within his own business.

He employs a lot of employees and he believes in education.

What we're finding is not as many people go to college as he used to go.

We're down about 53 percent of the high school graduates who are actually going on to secondary education but also we realize that if you have a high school graduation certificate you're not necessarily going to be that employable either.

>> So we need training.

We need training for another option and career oriented education workforce apprenticeships in school while you're still in high school.

That's that's a path forward for a lot of students and employers I've talked to say they need those type of people with some qualifications and training rather than just hire somebody and train them.

They want some of that training and if we can do it in high school and adjust our curriculum and K through 12 to encourage that type of direction for students, it'll it'll work in the workplace and benefit.

>> What's your sense of your hearing?

I'm always looking for innovative ways to improve our educational process but I'm always a little cautious to think that our academic institutions will be the driver of our workforce.

We need to give them the tools in K-12 particularly to make sure our children are prepared.

I personally would like to make sure that we start to increase our college attendance and our current college completion graduation rates.

We spend hundreds of millions of dollars in scholarship monies and I want to make sure the kids who have those are successful and able to to finish.

So I think we do need to have a better more high tech workforce.

But I'm always a little bit cautious on expecting a K-12 teachers to be able to accomplish that.

>> And in thinking of that in the governor's remarks about a week or so ago there were references to the 21st Century Scholars program another way of encouraging college attendance and trying to make that something or at least post-secondary activity something to be considered while high school is still in the act of happening a good strategy.

>> Right.

So right now you have to sign up and roll for the 21st sky before you graduate eighth grade and then it's income based and you have to maintain good grades and stay out of trouble.

But if you haven't done it by eighth grade then you're out of luck even if you fit all the parameters.

So the suggestion would be to make automatic enrollment.

In addition to that though, I would like to make sure that those children going have all the materials and needs that they have in a sense of being prepared for college because we don't have a great retention rate when they get there.

>> And so it's a false promise if we send these great kids off with scholarships and then they don't quite have all the life skills and study skills to stay because it's a limited scholarship.

Right.

It's not out there forever.

So I hope and I've talked to the commission for higher ed besides having Automan enrollment that we also look at how we can keep the kids in college and finish.

>> Yeah, I know when we say workforce development that could mean those currently employed as well as those that are at a different point in the pipeline that are working, you know, and you don't want to see so much of that escape over state lines.

So right now the bill looks like it is holding in committee and waiting the the amendment process.

>> And yet when you hear those two words state workforce development what there are several ways it seems in this General Assembly session that legislative we were trying to get more of an alignment perhaps to make economic development pay off with the people to match.

>> All right.

Or one of the things that we're trying to do to through hospital town or two is offer income tax credits to employers that are willing to put into that program for these kids I think currently was proposed as a ten thousand dollar maximum cap on a corporation that wants to invest in what I call it workforce development.

But training these younger folks that maybe aren't geared up and I completely support supporting our secondary education with these these programs.

But for those that don't want to do that, this provides another option.

So if we help our employers to have an incentive to actually want to work into apprenticeships, it's kind of like the European model is what we're kind of basing that off of what we've studied and learned especially in Sweden that it can work in the United States too.

>> So we are live in studio this evening with State Senator Liz Brown and State Representative Dave Ebbert and we invite you to join us just as Mary is right now.

>> And Mary, welcome to the program.

Go ahead with your question or comment please.

>> Hello.

Thank you both for being there as our representatives in the state.

>> Can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Oh great.

Great.

OK, the first question I would have as well as kind of a statement as far as the largesse in our you know we have tons of money as far as tax cuts.

The way I understand it is that income tax cuts really benefit those who have the highest income whereas sales tax cuts benefit those who spend most of their money and pay that tax in sales.

>> Am I correct in that assessment?

Well, I guess I guess I would say if you're certainly if you're a consumer and having raised seven children you would pay a lot of a lot of sales tax.

There's no question about that when you send them off to school every year shoes and socks and notebooks.

I'm not sure if I necessarily agree with you on the income tax issue, but I certainly think all of those should be looked at because we want to make sure that now remember if you're referencing the two year commission, it's only a commission and it will take a long time to consider all the possible options and the consequence.

But we certainly want to make sure that it does not impact Hoosiers if any changes are made.

But I think it's fair to to look at the tax and the impact of income sales and other taxes we have in the state.

>> So Barry, thank you very much.

Dave Dave ,you want to well, just just briefly, I think we need to look into this more.

I don't think we want to assume that this is naturally going to happen.

Anything that we're working on right now, especially some of these large bills 10 or three for instance or 10 or four in particular which is the health care bills that that's a that's a bill in process and you have to understand that there's going to be amendments changes.

We'll take a deeper dove into it.

But to assume that that's going to happen, there's a lot of hoops that have to be jump through and I think that that'll work out in the end we're not going to do something as just fiscally responsible.

We've been very, very, very careful about having a balanced budget and making sure that if we take from here is made up in another place.

So I would leave it at that right now and let's just stay tuned.

>> In fact, you mentioned health .

Let's go there because the first bill in the Senate's consideration deals with behavioral health matters, deals with mental health .

There's a companion bill Tenno six which follows the same path .

The bill is referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee for consideration on which you sit.

But talk to me about how mental health became indeed a legislative priority of the General Assembly at large and the Senate in particular.

>> I don't think it's a new priority.

I just think that frankly with so many people being isolated in the last few years it just exacerbated and brought a lot of issues more to the surface so to speak.

But we've seen this over the last couple of years.

Our children in high school, grade school are suffering from anxiety and issues like that and and adults and of course some of that is also we have issues with the drug addiction and things like that.

And so we have since I've been in the Senate in eight years we have slowly and slowly added more programs and of course that's such a tough space.

You're also trying different pilot programs.

Does this one work and it may not work with every every child or every individual.

So it's going to be a huge push going forward and making sure that we have providers in the communities so that people can go to a therapist or counselor or whatever it is and get the help they need and possibly the medicine that they may need.

Scuse me what we have I think this House bill don't quote me.

I think it's 10 or six.

It's got to do with mental health and you know, it's not a new thing.

This is what's been happening and it's becoming more and more of an issue that we need to address.

So we're coming to that point where we need to step up and address jail overcrowding where we have people being incarcerated that really have mental mental issues, maybe drug issues but in particular mental issues.

>> They're being incarcerated sometimes are held on the time they're held is longer than what the verdict would have been if they were convicted of guilty but where they could be instead sent to a mental institution or some type of rehabilitation facility and be treated for what really is causing an issue.

And they're not they're not a danger to the society but we need to empower them ten or six will do that.

It'll allow officers to with impunity be able to take them to health services rather take them to the local jail to be incarcerated.

>> So so in addition to the strengthening of Indiana's mental health infrastructure instead of one just a couple of doors down and of Bill Fort which is also connecting local health departments with the State Department of Health.

So there is action that seems to be complementary to what Governor Holcomb was suggesting as far as taking some action steps from the health commission that had been in service.

>> So that's what really Senate bill for is it's the governor's health commission and they are there ask if you will in terms of legislation and also it's it's a big number.

Yeah, several hundred million and so it's being separated out into two year tranches but it's a work in progress as well.

There's a lot of issues that need to be resolved on what programs very specifically will be funded and also the delivery system from state down to the locals.

>> Well, let's go back to the phones and welcome to the program.

>> Pat, go ahead with your question or comment please.

Well, I was wondering I've seen on TV where the state I think a senator or state representative said that they was going to want to lower or drop state income tax and it would be over a billion dollars that they'd be losing instead of doing that, why don't they just drop property taxes?

I can comment on that.

That is that's a very good question.

Thank you for that.

We are working on that.

I believe property taxes as do others that are working on some legislation I believe that are our property taxes are driven by assessments and you have you have a county levy that has to be paid for by the cumulative effect of all the property tax payers in the county when your assessment is to jump twenty five percent in a year because you've got runaway inflation, you've got a hot market in the housing industry, then you're paying a disproportionate amount of that levy because your tax is based on your assessment even though you have property tax caps of one, two or three percent, that tax cap is going to travel with the assessment.

>> So his assessment goes up the tax goes up.

>> We're looking at ways that don't violate the Constitution as far as our assessment matching your market value, that's that's the way we supposed to figure those taxes and we're looking at some way to maybe reduce the levy or the tax liability rather than mess with the Letha assessment, do what it's going to do and then find ways to credit or maybe increase the deduction on the on the liability tax portion of it where that lands I'm not sure but that's the general idea of I think what is going to be maybe a reasonable solution for the short term.

>> OK, and Pat, thank you very much.

>> Liz, anything you want to know?

I know there's a somewhat similar bill I believe in the Senate too.

OK, thank thank you very much for your call, sir.

In the time we have I want to get to one bill that is creating a bill of rights for Hoosier data privacy and leisure authoring that yes, we we passed it out of the Senate last year and it sort of got stalled in the House.

But this is a this is a big, big bill for Indiana.

This is say we're not a flyover state.

We're going to be a tech state if this passes.

Only five states have passed any legislation.

The feds have not done this to sort of make sure that those who have our private our private data are securing it properly and we have the ability to check to make them delete it, to correct it if they're mistakes every year.

And so there are it's from the GPS in your cars to you go to your grocery store and they know that you you know what things you buy and you get coupons, all those kinds of programs that we're talking about.

So it's going to be heard this week in Commerce Committee and we're moving forward and I think it's based after something called the Virginia model which just actually went to law this January 1st of this year and the good news for businesses that they all have to conform to that they know how to do it will give them two years to figure it out and we have a threshold because you don't want barriers for small businesses that are starting up who are just trying to figure this out.

But you know, this is a really important this is getting a lot of attention nationally.

I've been interviewed by Bloomberg because people realize Indiana is pretty sharp state and technology industry.

>> So it'll be it'll be a good bill to pass.

We'll look forward to following that for sure.

Dave, several pieces of legislation carrying your imprimatur a renter's tax deduction for disabled veterans being one of them.

>> Oh, yes.

Well, it's not the renters that's another Bill.

I do have a bill for veterans.

It's very it's a simple bill.

It just really gives recognition to critically disabled veterans.

>> That's the one I'm sure.

Yeah.

It's the same as the youth bill that we currently have now which allows youth hunters and we want to get them into into that sport and give them for free hunting days a year we're doing we're recognizing what our veterans have sacrificed and done, especially in this case the critically disabled.

They've lost a limb or limbs or legs and maybe they're confined to a wheelchair.

We're going to give them four days the same four days that the youth have for free hunting and I think it's it's going to get some support doesn't have a fiscal impact of any magnitude at all.

So I think it's a really good thing to do to recognize or sacrifice for our country.

We go back to your colleague Liz and you're chairing Judiciary.

You're on five other committees.

I believe it is a busy day.

It is a busy week of course and particularly to the Senate Committee on Judiciary.

There are a number of pressing issues that may be coming before you says the release and I'm just wondering what are some of the things you're watching in your role as chair with Judiciary this session?

>> Well, one of the big ones will be coming up is is we are the committee that oversees when courts when counties have a significant caseload and need new courts.

We're the ones that decide the legislature and it starts to mean whether or not we should grant them the ability to have a new judge.

That's a fiscal impact to the state and to the county and that matters.

>> And then we have some significant bills having to do with our chins or children in need of services which is so heartbreaking.

>> So those are some of the things coming forward right.

No good segue way here.

But I always recall that hearing that there ought to be a law means that there was a problem when we're finding a way to address it with legislation there is one dealing with the unlawful tracking of another individual.

>> Yes.

I'll quickly tell you last year thanks to our great media they brought this issue to me.

A woman was tracked illegally by an ex-boyfriend.

He beat her up.

That of course is a crime but actually putting a device in her car was not so we and it's shocking that that would not be and so we are going to make it a crime for someone to put a device or put an app or the apple air tags on someone else's personal property without their permission.

>> And I think you're starting to see this more and more.

And so that also will be getting hearing well, in addition to the legislation that's being filed, Dave, you're working with the another issue too related to state historic sites, important repair going on and you were sharing before showtime are we zoom in on Metamora as I guess an example of all this?

>> Yes, Metamora that's that's where the historic site Water Canal is.

I was appointed on the board of trustees for the state museums a couple of years ago.

So we've been working on maintaining our historic sites which we have 11 of them around the state Metamora.

My wife and I spent four or five days.

We visited every one of them and it was really sad to go through that town that was once a booming town with we have 11 mile federal historic canal that has locks.

It has a water wheel or gristmill and has a railroad train railroad that comes in brings visitors and it also has a Horse-Drawn barge that goes through the canal and it was quite a tourist attraction.

>> It's in disrepair.

It's been in disrepair for a number of years because of lack of funding.

So it was not in the governor's budget although we tried to put it in.

He didn't put it in.

So what we're doing right now and Kathy Freeh, the CEO of the State Museums and I and a couple other people are working on trying to get a fourteen point two million dollar appropriation out of the general out of the budget this year on Tenno one.

So we're going to be meeting and discussing it and see if we can't get something out of that to help site if we don't do anything two years from now, the next budget cycle, the erosion damage is being done will probably make that site irrepairable, which means we in the worst case we may have to abandon it and for me that's that's not an option.

We cannot abandon one of our historic sites so we need to find that money that's so important to the state and tourism and economic growth in that community in particular.

>> So in the moments we have left speaking of sites in every city in town, there may well be an opportunity for that leadership to identify a place where alcohol can be served outdoors and every fun is that that's a bipartisan thing which Aquata and you coauthoring this.

>> Yes, I have had this will be the third go around it passed the Senate.

The senators are more fun so we think would be fun to be able to walk around downtown during festivals with a beverage and not be confined behind the orange fencing and so I am much more confident this year the House will give it a hearing and pass and this summer we're all going to be a lot happier.

>> So we'll have to raise a red cup accordingly.

Yes, exactly.

This is goes along and do the court during the course of the session we'll have an opportunity to perhaps check in with you both between now and the end of April.

>> That would be terrific.

Great.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

State Senator Liz Brown, State Representative Dave Ebbitt and next week we will have Senator Travis Holtmann and State Representative Dave Hynie here in studio.

We'll learn more about Senator Coleman's legislative effort to indeed study state and taxation issues and see what else is of interest to you and give us a call keep the conversation going here on prime time.

I'm Bruce Haines for all of us with the program.

Thanks for watching.

Take care.

We'll see you again next week.

Goodnight