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Indiana lawmakers wrapped up the twenty twenty five legislative session in the overnight hours of April 25.

They pushed through dozens of bills over the finish line.

The volume and the variety of the legislation passed were overshadowed by two priority measures property tax reform and the next two years state budget.

Our guest will talk about these bills and some of the other takeaways from the session next here on this week's PrimeTime.

Good evening.

I'm Bruce Haines and with us this evening is Mitch Harper.

He is a local attorney and former Indiana state representative.

And we invite you to join our conversation as well as you see the number on the screen.

Mitch, thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me, Bruce .

Appreciate that.

>> I'm sure you could feel a kindred spirit to this finals week vibe that comes over the legislature about now this year for some substantive reasons.

It seems it's it's an important legislative session always important because it's a budget year but they also have a new governor that they're going to test and he's going to test the legislature their working relationship.

You've got an era where federal largesse is largely over for some very key things in the state that we're looking at public health .

We're looking at some of the education issues and then you've got property tax reform and Medicaid and schools are always are always issues and particularly as they're looking at right at the end of the session a very big revenue shortfall projected forward and that was the story going in.

>> It seemed was what are we going to do about Medicaid?

What are we going to do perhaps about road funding and what are we going to do perhaps about health care and the the different variation thereof?

And then comes the revenue report which seems to be the the great filter to which or through which all all bills go and to drop by two billion and to realize the shortfall of 400 million in the current fiscal year.

Those are those are tough numbers to try to overcome then given the time required.

>> One thing Indiana has I think Hoosiers need to know and give them some reassurance there is a state budget committee.

>> It's made up of leadership from both parties of the House and Senate.

The governor the budget director and they have the ability as revenues coming in and they're looking as though they may not be able to finance the entirety of the budget that's been passed.

>> They can hold some things up.

They can pull some things.

There may be some capital expenditures that don't occur over the next year or even the next two years that are authorized.

They have that ability to manage that a little bit.

>> I understand the Witheridge postsecondary education funding the comment was at one point you can have this for operations or capital but you have to pick one for example another that came along was the introduction of the cigaret tax as another lever it has taken sometimes the extremes to get some of these things fully out in the open.

Did that surprise you that its time was now?

Well, it comes at the end I talked to some Democrat legislators.

This was a Democrat priority.

I think that was allowed because at least projected at least projected to raise an incredible amount of revenue and something that probably brought some Democrat votes over for some key things here at the end.

The fact is the cigaret tax is a regressive tax.

The sales tax in Indiana has one of the highest in the country is a regressive tax.

I'm not sure how that's all going to play out.

And of course whenever you get the cigaret tax high enough people begin bootlegging cigarets.

>> Hmm.

OK, I mean it's a if you if you see an uptick in bootlegging and perhaps a decline in the revenue for cigarets, it's not necessary that people are smoking fewer cigarets.

>> It may mean that they're coming over the border.

>> Interesting notes in the margins to make as we speak with former state representative Harper here on prime time and you're welcome to give us a call if you like to see the number there on the screen about that budget.

>> It was Ways and Means Chair Geoff Thompson saying that this is a state budget that lives within our means.

It takes care of our priorities of education and public safety understandably.

Representative Greg Porter, Democrat of Indianapolis called the budget full of gimmicks games and optics prioritizing wealthy families over public schools.

The idea of universal vouchers in the second year of the budget.

>> Let's get Mitch Harper's assessment of the budget in general.

>> Well, it's a little hard to tell.

I did I did ask Caucus to send me some of the notes, the highlights.

>> But what I got were a pie chart and some very, very not very fleshed out points I haven't had a chance to see a budget in some detail or analysis goes into a lot of detail but they got the budget passed which they had to get done in this timeframe before the end of the session.

But again, I think there's going to be much more modification of it over the next two years, particularly if revenue continues to decline and we don't know what's happening in terms of a possible national recession which brings up a good point next year being a shorter session, it is also one that's supposed to be non budget related.

We're not opening up the budget echoes through the state House .

>> Might they open up the budget depending upon what kind of state the world is in?

They may I mean it's I mean the the the big thing is that they may not open up the budget very much.

There won't be more money flowing in to allow people to have new initiatives funded but they don't necessarily have to cut back because we do have a we do have this failsafe mechanism to allow spending to be pulled and and adjusted.

But I think they're going to be they're going to be handcuffed next year.

>> And what sort of initiatives that they can propose and the legislators kind of like to suggest some initiatives during an election year prior you know, the beginning of the election year.

>> Yeah, it may be that Senator Ryan Mischler summed it up.

I'd like to get your take on his take which was I know there's really no one going home feeling like they had a big win here.

>> Ryan's a very sharp legislator.

I respect him greatly.

We're glad to have him, you know, really from a neighboring district here in northeast Indiana.

I think that's that's a that's a fair assessment.

The quote continues to suggest that I think the best way to look at it is that it could have been much worse and again trying to find funding pools and moving life forward takes it into the wee small hours.

>> I wonder if you had that experience yourself at the state.

>> Yeah, that's one of the things this budget I mean the surprise insertion of the Indiana University trustee election language here at the last part not really debated, not on anybody's radar screen not standing as a separate bill but slipped into the budget and everybody has to pass a budget.

I think that's a little disturbing.

I was in legislature when there was really a transition from the strong speaker system to more democratization 24 hour rule delaying bills on the table.

>> It had to be much more transparent.

This was not that of course here in the budget and in fact I was going to ask you about that.

This was near the bottom of the 220 page budget bill for which most folks had I believe a day ,isn't it as it comes out of conference committee and reaches that final approval it still needs to like something coming out of the oven.

>> It needs to sort of set on the counter for for 24 hours now I understand aside from public debate, both the Republican caucus, the Democrat caucus, they're having raucous caucus meetings about the contents of the budget.

There are finance people very well, very, very experienced staff people in both caucuses in the House and the Senate from both parties and they go over it and explain it and answer questions from legislators.

>> So some of those some of that back and forth about details that occurs literally behind closed doors and people may say well gosh, it's a it's taking place behind closed doors.

>> Well, that's kind of an area where they can be free to ask very detailed questions of their own fiscal staff when they occur to a reasonably prudent person might be the point of having the governor's role involved with the IU board of trustees at that level is that a norm?

>> Is there precedent for something like that?

I think in the seventies you really had you know, following a lot of what occurred on college campuses an effort to provide some input from the from the alumni people who know the institution best and are interested in it.

And that was also kind of the era where the governor got an appointment.

There was a student representative name that's that is totally a governor's appointment.

But there have been some very sharp people who've been appointed to that spot including former state representative Casey Cox served as a student member of the IAEA board.

>> It's not unlike what governors have in other states but it's tempting for the governor to exert a little too much control and by that sometimes it's good to have other board members who are offsetting sort of what the direction is coming from.

The governor is somewhat of a foil right?

>> When people are dissatisfied, Governor Brown is not going to have that.

I mean that institution is within his purview to to appoint people who will do largely what he requests.

>> It's one of those to put a note on to follow as we go along to see just whether indeed it leads us.

We want to invite viewers to the conversation.

And Jim, you're on line three.

Welcome aboard.

Please go help with your questions or comments or questions that I'm calling concerning a settlement at stake we see a opioid from Purdue drugs opioid settlement of five hundred and twenty five million I believe and then I heard here we have four Wayne the second largest city in the state.

Our city only receives like seven million and that is in partial payments.

Can this be readdressed this amount of money I know there's that for Wayne once you get addicted you lose everything your home, your family, your job and there's a lot ramifications.

So is there any way is Mr. Brong readdressed to the reps for poor Wayne here but out of five hundred million he only throws a few bones.

>> Thank you.

Thank you Jim and Mitch.

>> Well it's really sort of outside the legislative purview.

Obviously they can lobby those and state government who are doing that and I would urge you Jim to write the write the governor regarding this.

Some of it is connected with how the the settlement between Purdue Pharma and the states have the allocation and when it's when when various tranches of that money occur.

There are some other opioid settlements that are occurring Walgreens I think just entered into another one.

So there's there's some other there's some other sources of funds that are beyond the Purdue Pharma case.

Seven million dollars is is is somewhat extensive and I think the other part of that is making sure you're talking to the mayor's office and our own board of health of the of the city county about how those funds funds are allocated here in Fort Wayne .

It's a huge problem.

I mean it is a huge, huge problem as you cited, Jim.

>> And thank you very much for the call.

And if you have a question or comment I'd like to share by all means all lines the numbers are open so feel free to join in.

We mentioned that there were two significant priority bills of course Tenno one is the House budget bill.

That's a biggie.

And then every two years and then SB one follows along and it's been quite the journey for property tax reform and I'd love to know what you thought as that trail was winding its way from January to current.

>> Well, I've got some pretty frank comments and one of them is I I come from the era and I was a big support and friend of Governor Bone and the Bone Property Tax Relief Program which was really the the foundational property tax relief program in the state of Indiana and what it did was to shift some of the funding for property tax relief to the state with an increase in the sales tax they were allocated back to replace property tax property tax replacement to the cities and counties.

They still decided their budgetary processes as usual.

But the other part of it, as dogbone always said, was a three legged stool and the other two legs are you had to control the rate and you had to control the levy or the total amount that's funded by property taxes.

Both of those were capped.

There was a growth factor based on inflation and cities and towns and counties and special taxing districts and the local all howled that that was too restrictive but it capped the rates and it capped the cap the overall levy and they had to live within that didn't say it was zeroed out or anything else .

>> What we're coming is what I can understand from this property tax program in this bill is we're going to be back where the state is saying we're going to provide this mechanism for relief that is dollars that you can raise but you've got to be willing to raise your local income taxes.

>> States aren't going to be so restricted in taxes that it can raise and we saw this starting really with Bob Orr but accelerating under Governor by and Governor O'Bannon before the Mitch Daniels property tax program which to this day people are having a hard time figuring out the assessments and how that all works.

It's very different from the bone property tax basis but the state started saying we're going to give you various mechanisms for raising local revenue.

You can have a referendum, you can raise local option income tax.

You can have the lette income tax increase all of these things and locals were expected to raise taxes on income.

>> They did.

They also raised and there were some incentives because if you didn't use it you lost it to raise property taxes to their limit.

Now you've come in with this new assessment system and that's why people are are howling.

Would you really have this growth in property taxes?

What we're kind of back to the system of states calling it property tax control but you have mechanisms where Mr. City Council person and county council person and you can raise these these local revenues.

>> You bear the fire from people doing that.

>> It is a system that's going to raise taxes.

I don't think it's going to cap them.

The Bone Property Tax Program did and since then it's this sometimes the state steps in.

They have freedom to tax.

Locals don't.

There's incentives for locals to raise taxes on their own and they take the blame and it keeps shifting as we go along.

I don't think people are going to be happy with this as it plays out.

We'll see.

I wondered too if it was too simplistic but to understand like that puzzle where you have one big square and then other little squares you need to move around that if you reduce your property taxes but still have an obligation you can you can get property relief and and yet you still have an income tax or other assessment coming that that local government can have access to with additional demand on those services and particularly at a time when money isn't flowing is necessarily freely as perhaps it could and there are more demands on that cash in the old days, you know, going back to the forties and fifties really the sixties if you were a school board member and you had to raise property taxes, you had to you were increasing your levy for support.

You might think there might be fellows with pitchforks come in to the school board meeting because there was a very direct connection between property tax rates and then the levy that was raised in recent decades.

It's you can understand that it's very complicated.

People don't show up at budget hearings but the budget hearing timing is all based on property taxes.

People feel like they don't have control or input in it and you don't want the few people who really understand all the interchangeable interchangeable parts getting on the same airplane and I would hear in some respects related to SB one that that plane in particular was almost being constructed while in flight you had the the governor's plans and you had the Senate's plans and then the House leadership had a thought and it ultimately found its way but they knew they had to do something called property tax reform because people are just screaming and that's across Indiana.

They did some things that are different to it.

But I'm not sure that in the long run people are going to be satisfied with this with with what was passed.

>> Let's go back to the phones and welcome Jeff to PrimeTime this evening Jeff.

>> Hi, welcome to the show.

Go ahead, please.

Thanks for having me on, Mr. Harper.

I have a question.

I live in Noble County and I pay attention to Noble DeKalb and some of the surrounding areas.

The energy debate it's contentious and there are signs up no solar, no wind, no this, no that and I go to some of the meetings that I you know, pleasantly discuss it with some of those folks and I say well what kind of energy do you want?

That's the kind of silence I get.

And then they'll say Oh well maybe nuclear or something of that effect.

Why here?

That's seven to ten years of permitting to get that to happen.

And did the state not pass some type of assistance in the range of two hundred and forty million dollars as a tax incentive for anybody that would start a nuclear plant which I don't even think one exists in the state?

What is the future energy going to come from a I is hungry and thirsty.

>> Sure.

These new these new data centers that are springing up or are thirsty and other states are all grappling with this because the energy needed to run these massive server farms is going to outstrip current energy needs and you've got every right to be concerned.

Jeff, Illinois is looking at subsidizing small scale nuclear and we're not talking about the sort of nuclear plants that we recall.

You know that we're not built after Three Mile Island, Indiana scrub the the one nuclear plant in mid construction.

Yes.

That was a very big deal in the 80s.

There's now new technology of having smaller reactors.

But you're right, that's several years off.

I think the fact that everybody's having a debate, they've got other options but what they're not talking about are building new coal plants.

They're extending the life of those many of those along the Ohio River and near the Indiana coal coalfields.

>> But we've got a problem.

Jeff, thank you very much for checking in with that that come in.

I appreciate it.

A lot of months a lot of bills, fewer bills after half time.

But through it all what pieces of legislation have you been following?

>> We're peaking your interest.

Well, something that's not legislation but that the governor announced was was an audit of the Indiana Economic Development Commission.

The levels of audit there are many, many levels of audit.

It's not real clear what the details will be but the IDC has a lot of cash.

>> They sometimes give out subsidies for new industry and firms coming into the state who then donate back to IDC fund which they've declared you know, can't be audited, can't be seen, can't be opened up.

I think it's a welcome to folks that the governor says there's going to be an audit.

>> We don't know what the scope of that is.

I think probably a lot of people in the Lafayette area who we're looking diverting water down to the IDC planned spot down by Lebanon are are interested in that.

That was a big issue in that region of the state.

I think that'll have an effect on economic development.

>> We'll see how that plays out the school boards.

Yes, going to participate in elections.

>> Yes.

That's something I you know, when I was first raised at the beginning of the session, it's fraught with several things.

One of them is that over the last 20 some years both party rules and the state legislation have been changed that you can be held from not being able to be a candidate on the ballot from even filing from providing another choice for voters.

If you're not a member of your party and good standing well folks who run for school board as an independent who get support from folks who are otherwise partizan Democrats or Republicans or their donors, they'll be excluded from some things in the future and that interplay it's the knock on effects of the school board.

It's not just having a partizan election.

You know, you can have the two parties put up candidates or people can run with a party designation.

Other independents can run but there are knock on effects to that that people have not discussed yet.

I think it might actually encourage a lot of people to seek independent candidacies going forward because school boards is something people regard as very different from other types of government.

>> The state one piece of legislation that was interesting we have just one minute but I would love your thirty second thought on the idea of the Indiana Illinois boundary Adjustment Commission that was taken more seriously than I think maybe some first thought.

>> Have you been to central and southern Illinois?

Those poor people are wholly unrepresented.

It's a it's a huge chunk of land.

They have no control over what goes on in their state government.

They deserve to have this talked about.

But of course it requires approval from both states.

It's not going to happen but it's worthy for those folks and for Indiana to poke some more fun at the sad state of Illinois.

>> Well, I thought it would be something on which we could go out with a smile because there's been a lot of business with the current budget session.

But it is a pleasure to have local attorney and former state representative Mitch Harper joining us on prime time.

Thank thank much.

>> Appreciate it.

And for all of you, thank you for watching as well.

Special time for prime time next Friday night seven o'clock.

Join us for that will have 12 of our northeast Indiana representatives and senators from the delegation as a part of our program.

You'll want to see it next Friday night seven o'clock.

I'm Bruce Haines giving