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>> Even this week seven of the General Assembly's short session has passed.

Week eight prepares to bring with it another round of deadlines over numerous bills still in limbo at the Indiana State House.

The House has until Tuesday the Senate until Thursday to vote bills out of committees full chamber votes follow in the House and Senate on March four and five respectively.

Now the Indiana Capital Chronicle reports that among the measures awaiting further action those include dealing with property taxes 13th checks, foreign ownership of agricultural land limits to the governor's executive powers and a bill to condemn anti-Semitism in educational settings across the state.

Well, we'll talk with our guests from the House and the Senate about prospective measures in motion at the state House on this week's prime time.

And good evening.

I'm Bruce Haines.

And with us today is 13th District Republican state senator and Assistant President Pro Tem Sue Glik.

And also with us is Seventy Ninth District Republican State Representative and House Majority Floor Leader Matt Laman.

And as always we invite you to join the conversation with your questions and comments.

Just call the number that you see on the screen.

>> And as we widen out and welcome Sue welcome mat to to the program.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks.

>> It's good to be here.

And it is important to note we have representatives we have set we have representative we have a senator and we have leaders in these chambers.

So take advantage as we are here on this Friday to talk with you and this is a short session you've seen many of them in various sizes long short special house.

>> How's this one so far?

So far it's been a hurry up and wait but it's been it's been rather frantic the last week or so as people are moving their bills as quickly as they can.

They've told us to do that all along and I think the urgency set in about a week ago and people realize if your bills not moving maybe you need to amend the important parts into other legislation that is getting some attention if you want it to pass .

We're reaching the deadlines when bills have to be amended and have to be if they have to be recommitted to appropriations or ways and means for review because there's a financial factor involved, it has to be done this week and so they have to move them just really short sessions go I've been through several and this is the I say it's kind of the one that's moved the the the fastest in a way but yet at the same time I think we've kept a lot of people on on track like we told them going into the session.

Here's the deal.

It's going to be a short session.

Give me a quick short session and get your bill where you can concur with your Senate partner because you're going to end up with about three or four days to go to conference and some will get this you know, get used to this kind of this game of well get to where I want it and then the Senate will get what they want and then we'll spend we'll go back and forth.

>> I'll give here you take their time is going to run out.

So we're telling people get your bill right now and so they don't have to go to conference and you can get it work it out with your Senate colleagues and so that's been taken to heart.

And so you have a lot of people as you said, that are rushing around right now getting their bill in a good place in the Senate.

>> So when it comes back to us we can concur and move on it seems we're at that point where there is this much interest in what bills are moving is what bills aren't moving.

And it leads me to this general question is is there's one or so bills that are surprising to you about their movement or lack thereof at this hour?

>> Well, I don't know that I would say their lack thereof because the thing is this and again it kind of goes back to we're down to the last two days on the House side and no of hearings but there's several bills that we've been holding to do just what I said earlier to try to get those moving in the right place and reach a point where we can.

So I think one of them I think I saw on your on your first run through these different bills was the governor's powers well, Senate bill two , three, four of which I'm the House sponsor and it will be moving but it's going to be you know, we still got to try to get this in the right place.

I tell people we don't want to relitigate covid What we want to do though is to make sure that we're establishing that that that fair balance of powers between the executive branch, the legislative branch and so came over from the Senate was a bill that said here's what the governor can and cannot do and the length of time they can.

And while I agree with some of that, there's some of that needs to be tweaked and so we're working on that.

So I think you're going to see that probably being a committee, you know, early in the week here and we'll get that out and then we'll go from there.

Mm hmm.

And certainly any one in particular that of interest to you as to where it is or versus where it should be?

>> No, I think some of these are moving.

There's a few that are going to die.

We we can anticipate that and portions of them may reappear before the end of the session.

But some just aren't ripe yet, if you will.

And and there's been several I think Representative Schmults had a bill to raise the speed limit on the interstates to seventy five four four trucks and well for everyone actually.

And he said when he introduced it I want to see what the feeling is, what the sentiment it is kind of test the waters and I don't believe that he anticipated that it was going to pass this session but he wanted to start the conversation and and get some some feedback on where people and where the agencies thought that might land.

>> And I do think we're had a lot of people who have said I'm really setting the stage for 25 for one of two reasons either one is I don't think the bill's right where it should be but I want to get input and the best way to get input is put the bill out there because you'll hear pretty quickly from the people that don't like that bill or they love that bill.

But the second piece is is that there are things that have maybe a fiscal attachment potentially and you want to see where that might be knowing you're not going to do anything this session with a with a spending bill.

But it us at the table now going into the budget session for next year.

>> Here's may well be a perfect example among many but it's the one that deals with two different approaches to pension bonuses for public retirees you have in the House side tell for about a priority bill for that thirteenth check and I know you're connected to that meant and the Senate has two seventy five if you're scoring at home.

But that's a longer term plan of being able to extend funding and not just necessarily one time but still the House speaker Todd Houston told reporters his caucus won't greenlight changes to benefit bonuses without delivering an immediate return to retirees.

How do you unscramble this thing with the time you have left?

>> Well, you want to take that further?

Well, I'll take it first.

You can you can bat cleanup.

>> One of the problems and people don't necessarily understand is the state might have funding to fund their portion of the 13th check or cost of living adjustment.

But there's also a component for locals the municipalities, the towns, the cities and others and their law enforcement groups and so on.

So any time we take an action like that it has repercussions to the locals and we normally budget on a two year cycle.

So if we just automatically grant a 13th check or cost of living without consulting some of our partners in cities and towns and those areas they may not have it built into their budget.

They may not be able to cover it and that's unfair to them.

For us to make arbitrary decisions it's much better at least we in the Senate feel that it's much better to come to a long term decision maybe because of the amounts of of salaries that teachers and other employees were receiving.

And you know, back in the day when everyone's life expectancy was about 70, 60 or 70 and now they're living denied maybe we need to work about supplemental reserve funds to augment their retirement because money doesn't go as far as it used to.

And then from a date another date forward we do cost of living because of salaries did pick up over time and that's why the Senate approached it the way they did is anticipation of a long term solution.

I think the House was looking at it, you know, an immediate 13th check and then maybe adopting part of our long term solution.

>> I'm hoping that's what they're doing.

Well, and I'll say, you know, this is the place that maybe the Senate and the House don't see eye to eye.

>> And I think what the House has said for the past I think we've passed is now over every six years in a row now.

>> And I think what it is is we've looked at it I think Sue's right there needs to be a longer term approach but the 13th check has been there.

It's been there before.

It's been and I'm not saying you do things because it's always been the the process but over the last decade plus has been that 13th Jack.

And what it was is there was no there was no cost of living increase.

So the 13th check was our way of saying hey, here's kind of that immediate cost of living increase with the last couple of years, especially as many many have come to say that that's a necessity for me, not a one percent cola that might put four or five dollars in my pocket but truly that 13th check.

So I do think there probably needs to be both a cost of living approach to this.

So you do have a long term solution and eventually you phase out that 13th check.

But as it stands right now it's funded is not an additional appropriation is not something we have to go and take money out of some other fund.

Is there so it can be done and that's where we've that's why I think the speaker has kind of maybe put more that you know, spear in the ground if this is going to need to happen because we've done the past and we've always gotten you haven't got our colleagues on the other side to agree.

And so I think this year that's why we made it one of our priorities and this will be one of those fun to watch and one of the ones to watch as we move into the final weeks of the session, we have an offline call from Michael we'd like to get to which is phrased as as follows.

Do you think that the governor will veto the bill to limit his power?

>> Well, I don't think so and I can't speak on behalf of the administration.

>> But one of the things we've tried to do excuse me if you remember so eleven twenty three that we passed in twenty twenty one that was my bill that said, you know we need to have some parameters around a state of emergency in the state of Indiana where we sit on the sidelines and the timing of covid in 2020 could not have been worse.

>> It hit Indiana literally the week we got out in March.

So you had the situation where March and April and as you got into May and June as things started to tighten up again, we the General Assembly, the legislative sat on the sidelines.

>> That is the past.

What we said now is if this happens again at what point so the governor vetoed eleven twenty three we override the veto and then the Supreme Court shot us down and basically said it's clear that constant action only allows the governor to call back the General Assembly and you can't call yourselves back.

But what we do have the authority to do is limit the time.

For example if you call to reverse you have so many days to do this and this and this.

So two , three, four does is it says you have basically 30 days an extension of 30 and I'd like to look at this as kind of a hard 60 days statewide.

>> I'd like to see a statewide and I think if that's the case I think the governor will sign that I agree.

>> I you know, I'm in hopes that will happen.

He's looking at it from a little different perspective now because two years ago during covid or whatever he was in the first two years of his second term, now he's looking at his his career in the rearview mirror, if you will.

And and he's looking more in terms of what does this mean in terms of emergencies because quite often emergencies carry with them a cost and where do we get the funds and how do we address these issues?

It's one thing if it's a national emergency and the federal government steps up with a large check, it's another if it's more regionalized or it's more you know, maybe a tornado hits Henryville or some small area of the state and it can be addressed much differently than in a statewide emergency like covid was.

So those things can be addressed in different timeframes in time periods but 30 days or 60 days may not be enough.

But then again we don't want them to languish forever without some input from the general some well I think also is that you have the timing is right because if you're going to put any parameters around the powers of a governor do it before the new governor comes in.

Yeah.

So we are at that position where Governor Holcomb's term limit and so we will we will have a new governor come January of next year, whoever that may be.

We want to set the table to say this is where you're getting used to have the power to call us in.

But these are the triggers that would force that based on those timeframes.

>> And if I'm the governor I'd want to know coming in where my I I wouldn't know that if every department in the state right.

>> What powers do I have and this is a place we say you the incoming governor have this much authority before you can you have to bring us in time.

Michael, thank you very much for your call.

Let's go to Tom who is sharing another question offline and it goes like this Why are property and insurance values rising and taxpayers are having to pay higher taxes, valuation values and we're in court in a period of time when the values are rising so rapidly on and part of that is in fact we have a housing shortage.

>> We simply have more people.

We have jobs, some of which are open because we don't have people to fill them but single family residential is an extremely competitive market right now and that drives the value on houses.

People are willing to pay a little more to get the house they want or get into their first home or what have you.

What that does is that drives the price.

The market value goes up and with trendy you have a situation where then the the values across the board go up and the and the taxes rise.

>> What is also happening right now is there is a task force working.

It's a two year I believe project and it's chaired by Senator Travis Holdman from Marcal and they are looking at all the taxes in India on income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and all the other taxes and fees that enter into the budget of Indiana.

And what we're trying to do is figure out the sweet spot how do we get these things in line so any one area is not paying more than their share or any type of real estate or paying more than their share.

>> And I'll just briefly touch on the second part of that which was the insurance that's the industry I'm in and what we're seeing is inflation.

It's inflation because what we're seeing is the cost of repairs are increasing when insurance companies have to pay the cost of repairs, those costs get passed on to the consumer and we've seen large increases across the board on all carriers.

>> So you have prices going up on construction which means we don't build as many houses, which means we have a housing shortage which takes us back to taxes going up on those houses are selling at a somewhat of an inflated rate.

So it's all it's all kind of cyclical to your house is now more valuable to both replace physically and on the marketplace.

>> Tom, thank you very much for checking in.

Jeff has a question and calls it in and asks Do you have an opinion on the governor dedicate wetlands the Buchanan unit but signing legislation to downsize wetlands and also start with just wetlands in general.

It was the first bill signed out of the short session we know then and it didn't seem to come up in conversation much not that it was secretive at all but going into the first part of the session all of a sudden there was a day or so it felt.

Well thirteen eighty three was basically an agency bill by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

They are attempting there have been a number of court rulings in the past few years and and most of those have been unfavorable to the preservation of wetlands frankly.

They basically have reigned in the waters of the United States which said that every wet spot in a field or an area was was basically under the control of the Environmental Protection Agency and it was waters the United States and couldn't be disturbed without various permits and all of that.

Then we had the the United States Supreme Court weighing in and say no, no, that's not so we're going to limit those powers and there's various decisions what the what the Indiana Department of Environmental Management says we have too many rules.

We have a set of federal rules.

We have a set state rules and everyone who wants to do work on their own property which they bought and paid for now has to get a set of state permits and then they have to start over it through the federal government and get their federal permits.

>> This is an attempt to get these in somewhat a a comparable order so that they mirror each other and we can eliminae duplication of this permitting process.

I wasn't involved in the bill.

I was asked to be it by anyone involved in the bill and it went through the House first to four digit numbers.

>> So those are House bills went through the House, came over to the Senate, went through environmental management.

I voted against the bill.

I'm not entirely opposed to the concept but it was the speed, the rapidity that it went through and the lack of input from some of the environmental groups.

I really think they should have had a seat at the table.

I think other people should have been involved.

I can't complain that the permitting process should be streamlined and we should know whether or not I need a permit.

They call them general permit.

You're allowed to do things like pull logs out of out of ditches or you know, those kinds of things under this bill, the reason it went through so fast has been explained to me that in order for the Department of Environmental Management to start implementing this July one they were going to have to pass regulations.

They need 30 days to to post those regulations, take public comment and then pass them so that they can have their forms and everything online so that people know that it's implemented and here's what they have to do.

So that was the explanation given to me.

>> I'm as I said, I voted against the bill.

I'm not entirely opposed to some of the concepts.

>> I just wish we'd had more time and more people involved in the actual vetting of the bill right.

I voted for the bill partly because we've spent the last several years dealing with this .

I think as you mentioned at the beginning we went from, you know, basically anything that had a standing water was considered a wetland and we went then to I don't like pendulum swings.

Right.

So I don't want to go where you know, I had one guy tell me if you can drain it is not a wetland.

>> Well, that's too far the other way.

>> So over the last couple of years I know we've had bills that have been a little bit controversial.

All this does is as say as you said, we've already got these employees.

We've got this class one class to classroom.

How do we now streamline that process of permitting so that if I meet the qualifications that this is a first class one, how do I get it through the process a lot quicker and I think that it's I don't think this was nearly as controversial as we've had in the past.

I think it was just more of a we got to get this out as you said because there is a process and that process was not going to get done by July 1st when we have to implement the law unless we did it that very early on.

>> And keep in mind for a lot of farmers especially, this is the time of year they want to get those drainage projects done because they're going to be planting those fields are going to be full.

They don't have time to start over in June, July or August.

They're going to have crops in the field.

>> They need to have some some certainty on what they need to do and what they have to have in place before they start right with the time we have left early in the session.

>> But in the show which is not much let me give you each at least a minute to share what legislation you're still carrying that is alive and well and moving along.

And let me start with you on well, I have several pieces that are still alive well is in the eye of the beholder because they are alive may not be well but there are things that I you know, like I said, we all kind of bring our expertize so mine have been around some insurance issues and so we have some problems with with people especially foreign governments injecting themselves into a lot of our litigation and a lot of our financing of litigation .

that and that's moving on the kind of the positive the things you feel good about is I had the privilege of sitting on the some inquest's Quinn Centennial Committee which is celebrating America's Tervita birthday and we have an honorary license plate bill that has gone through the process and is now through the Senate and back to me and I think it's just need to be able to do some things that affect everybody there for everybody but don't have a cost or a negative impact and things like that.

There's not controversy around him so it's always nice to have something like that.

So that's the positive.

The other things I've got going on here are moving but some of what the right away the other ones are just kind of hanging on.

You got it.

>> And so well I had a small wet band Wet Lands Bill from the standpoint point to give incentive to builders and developers and maybe others who own property that have wetlands, mature wetlands do a far better job of giving us clean water and and fulfilling this bill would allow the Department of Natural Resources upon request together with the soil and water conservation service of certifying land as wetlands and then they would qualify the term and DNR languages wild lands but basically it's very similar to your forest reserve where you can put that you can reduce the taxation on those on those properties and therefore there's an incentive a financial incentive to believe that that land and wetlands and for developers that's a piece of property they couldn't build on unless they bulldozed it out.

It's far cheaper to leave it there.

Take the tax incentive, maybe pass it on to the ultimate property owner with a little extra land on their lot but it benefits everybody along the way and it gives us the clean water that we really want from the mature wetlands.

>> I have another little bill that's just a veterans bill.

It's for catastrophically disabled veterans.

We have individuals who've served our country, been injured in the process severely so this allows for a special hunting season will take place in September when the weather's just a little bit better for them and allow them to go out in the woods, most of them with guides that would assist them but can't hunt.

So these individuals who've given so much this nation can have the opportunity to hunt and take part in nature which they don't have at this point.

>> So we got a long way to go and a short time to get there as soon as the sun and with a lot of good things along the way for discussion and I thank you both very for the discussion tonight.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

State Senator Sue Glik, State Representative Matt Layman.

I'm Bruce Haines and for everyone with prime time thank you for watching and take care.

We'll see you next.

Good night The Regional Chamber of Northeast Indiana.

Advocates for a world class infrastructure, a competitive business climate, 21st century talent and rural investment.

One region, one voice.

NEINAdvocates.com.