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Among the headlines this week from Indianapolis, Governor Mike Brown joined hundreds at a state house property tax reform rally on Monday that same day the House approved a Senate resolution calling for a convention to amend congressional term limits into the United States Constitution in the Senate.

The Judiciary Committee is considering a House bill to appoint additional magistrates to approve improve rather the efficiency of Elkhart County court system and the Appropriations Committee is taking up a House bill that would relieve child care licensing restrictions and increase accessibility for Hoosier families.

>> The House legislators connected to the House legislation rather connected to these measures are with us tonight to talk about their bills and to answer your questions right here on prime time.

And good evening Bruce Haines with us tonight are 40 nights district Republican state representative and Deputy Speaker Pro Tem Joanna King and eighty Fifth District Republican State Representative Dave Hynie.

And we invite you to join our conversation as well.

Just use the number you see on the screen.

Give us a call with your questions and comments throughout our live program here and there is Representative Hyne, Representative King Dave Joanna, thank you both for being here.

>> Good evening.

Good evening.

Thanks for having us.

Sure.

So there are property tax proposals from the governor's office, from the Senate Republicans from the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Jeff Thompson had a few ideas.

What's your understanding for both of you where we are now with property tax reform this year?

>> Well, I'll be got an hour.

How long we have to talk about this?

Yes, everyone has an opinion and two weeks ago Ways and Means we met and took testimony from one hundred and forty four people in that testimony took nine hours so we got done at 19 after 10 on a Wednesday night.

But you know it's interesting one hundred forty four people testified only one was a taxpayer.

Him and his wife the rest were lobbyist and everyone's afraid that we're going to move there.

>> She's just going to get moved.

>> And so they're all trying to protect their their home turf.

But we do have a plan and we'll be working with the Senate this week to get everybody on the same page.

But the intent is not to hurt our schools, not to hurt local units of government of government.

>> But the intent is is to get use the money for good reasons.

>> And right now and just give you an example township government across the state of Indiana three hundred million dollars and you heard that right?

Three hundred million dollars is is just sitting there not being used.

There's no no reason why there's three hundred million and we have to do something because those are our tax dollars.

Those are your tax dollars.

So this is everybody watching this show their tax dollars.

>> We got to make sure we use those tax dollars to the best of our ability.

>> So we're working on that and it's tough.

Joel, what you said so far?

>> Well, I don't serve on ways and means but I listen to a good part of the testimony as it was taking place on my drive home.

And you know, it's one of those things that we need to take a very careful approach to it.

It's not the time to take a sledgehammer or an ax to it's a very, very methodical process and making sure we don't make moves that are have unintended consequences.

This is really about local governance and what is happening in the local counties and making sure that they have the revenue that they can provide the services, fire services, library services and there are so many services that we want to make sure that those those dollars are spent.

Well, I will say that the property tax we do need to change how we've been taking a look at property tax and this is the year that we're going to give our best shot at doing that and there are a lot of people that have weighed in on it.

This is the week as Representative Hyne said, this is the week that we really sit down ways and means with appropriations to really make sure that we are doing what is the very best for taxpayers.

This is these are their dollars and we represent them.

>> And so this is the week that we will be spending a lot of have a lot of conversations around that.

To borrow a basketball metaphor, there is still time on the clock but when the buzzer sounds, do you think we'll have something we will have something and but I want to make sure everybody's aware you know, we're all going to be getting our tax bills this coming well couple of weeks now we can't do anything to change the tax bill that you're going to be getting in the mail a couple of weeks.

But what we will be able to do is change your tax bill next year, the following year and down the road and it's going to be a it'll take us three years to implement the changes that we have on the drawing board.

>> So I'm looking forward to it.

Got it.

Well, speaking of tax, slightly good news it seems the general fund revenues for February that report came in to look like nearly an eight percent increase above the estimate from December and just under 18 percent above revenue for February from a year ago.

So anything in that report encouraging to you as work continues on the budget front?

>> Well, for me it's very encouraging because when we did our budget back in January in ways and means we were using the December forecast so we were using the bare bones we're using you know, by law we have to have a balanced budget.

>> So we had to use a forecast that we could get our our budget work done.

And I mean we it was it was tough.

But now that budget is over in the Senate's hands, they're working their magic on it.

>> But then April 15th I believe we'll get the April forecast and things do look like they're trending positively and then we'll be able to add some things and hopefully make more people happy, please.

>> Well, and I was just going to say now that now's the time for me to lobby my friend in ways and means, one of the bills that I got through unanimously in the House, for example, was a cancer research bill.

But because of funding we it's something that we just can't fund at this time.

I do know that that language is over in the Senate now and hopefully we'll get that stuck in because it is one of the bills that I've carried that I've had so much support in the hallway, so much support with other legislators and people that were just down visiting at the state house saying we really need to get that funded.

So my hope is that some of the bills that we early on said, you know, we're going to put a put a pause on this right now which was the right thing to do.

But now we have maybe an opportunity to fund some of those projects that I think are really going to be impactful for Hoosiers and that's my hope that some of those will get through here in the last couple of weeks and it's hard to say no to the hallway gets smaller when the conversations happen and I'm looking at some of the dates on the calendar.

I think the Senate has to come forward by the 10th.

You mentioned the revenue report by April 15th and then more give and take in conference April 24th hopefully will be signee die.

>> So we'd love to have everything all said and done on April 24th right now on the money for good news for both of your districts and others as well.

Word coming out about the Indiana community crossing's matching grant program 245 Indiana communities sharing two hundred million dollars in state matching funds.

It had to be a nice day in the neighborhood to to share that information with your constituents and my community of New Haven one point one million dollars.

So that's good.

But the best thing about that is we do have a road funding bill passed the House and now it's in the Senate and on Tuesday hopefully they'll vote that out of committee and then go to the full Senate.

But it is really going to give us the dollars to have for us to go forward and it will improve the community crossing grants.

So it would be better for the communities but also there will be dollars and hopefully you know, you've heard me talk about us 30 a lot but hopefully they'll be so we can get that to be a freeway and Middlebury Millersburg, Elkhart County there small community crossings has been really helpful for our communities.

I know Goshen Middlebury as you said Millersburg they have all benefited from this program and you know it makes the livability in our communities so much better.

We've got to have good roads and our local communities for them to be able to make that happen.

This is a great program.

This matching program has been really transformational and we need to keep going and make sure we continue to fund it as well.

>> One of the roads on the radar is the U.S. 30 and the hope of that national road to find its way into being described as a freeway from the Indiana Ohio line at least all the way up to Valparaiso.

This has been exciting a lot of committee meetings.

Dave, what can you tell us about where we are in this one?

>> Well, I've been working on it for eight years and we do have you know, you look at roads across Indiana, they have to be number one.

You look at them based on safety.

You know, we want to make sure that our roads are safe for our constituent and for the people of Indiana.

But number two , it's so important that we have good roads for infrastructure so that we can have economic development and in here in northeast Indiana if you see you know, we have a sixty-nine but if we had a US 30 be freeway it would be so helpful for Michigan out and Woodburn, Indiana they have to use us 30 to take their finished products to their warehouse in Chicago and you know, they can't get their trucks competitively to ship their trucks and you know, they're in a world market steel dynamics, you know, to ship West they have to use us 30 and again, you know, to get trucking companies to come in and haul their goods.

>> It's tough and then you go to Warsaw, Indiana, you have the biome people medical people ,you know they need good roads to ship their products around the world.

>> So very, very important that we get the moneys in in this funding bill will do that that we have the dollars to make us 30 a freeway.

We've talked to Governor Brown.

We've talked to the new secretary of industry and everybody's on board.

So now we just have to make it happen like the matching funds for your road programs in your communities.

What kind of a match if any, is involved in an undertaking like was there you know, this is Dave specialty.

>> But one thing I do want to say is you 30 is one of the roads that connects the East Coast to the West Coast.

It's a very important road and when you talk about being being a thoroughfare going through Indiana that connects both ends of the our country, it's a very important road in Pennsylvania as you know, it's the Lincoln Highway.

It's been a very important part in other states and it's it's important that we get it ramped up to the ability to be able to do all the trucking services that we need to have.

Indiana is the crossroads of America.

We're going to continue to be that.

And one of the things that we need to do is make sure that the infrastructure we have provides for the movement of goods and services throughout our nation and it is is absolutely critical in that .

But we also need to remember that everyone else has roads in Indiana.

Everybody wants to have a US 30 and you know that needs done in their particular geography.

So we are competing with the rest of the state and that's why you have to have the ear of the governor.

You have to have the year in that and you have to show them a plan and we have that plan.

Look forward to following that as we go along and see how the ripple effect of that activity plays out as we are in prime time tonight with Representative Steve Hynie and Joanna King and we invite you to join us if you'd like to do so.

>> You see the number on the screen, Joanne, you coauthored legislation that's going to bring some additional magistrates to health County's court system to tell us more about this bill and Snel and I think the Senate Judiciary.

>> That's correct.

It's going to be heard on Wednesday in the Senate Judiciary authored by Representative Tim Westco.

I had a companion bill I had another bill just like it in the House but we really wanted to make sure the goal was to get this across the finish line.

We worked on it two years ago.

It hadn't gone through the proper process of summer study and being voted out of summer study.

So we had to wait until this year to do it.

It made it you know, made it through all those hurdles in front of it and really it speaks to the need that we have in Elkhart County.

So every county as you have magistrates, judges that work in that county, they look at the need across the state of Indiana.

>> L.A. County is number two in the state of Indiana for need based on additional magistrates .

So we take a look at the workload of each magistrate and how many cases that they're taking care of .

And while some counties are eight point five, we're at one point for so that means our judges are are doing the work of one point four judges.

They're overworked and one of the reasons for that is is Elkhart County has grown in numbers.

We have a lot of people that come into our county every day for the manufacturing and we've implemented several problem solving courts so the veterans problem solving course, the drug problem solving courts, those are important courts that are really making a difference in our community and we want to make sure we can adequately serve all the people that are being served through those to the court system.

So we were hoping to get this across the finish line this year.

I have no reason to believe that it won't make it but we're not going to give we're not going to we're going to keep cheering and making sure it happens until we actually have that signed document.

>> So we appreciate the update on that and there are several updates now that we're moving into the middle of the second half kind of the in that dynamic with with the sessions calendar for example, Dave, you have legislation will expand the pool of available child care options, reducing some regulations around child care services provided through schools and other educational institutions.

>> How does that how does that work?

Well, how it works is you have a friend call you and say hey Dave, you ever thought about you know, right now schools can have child care facilities in a in their schools.

However, by law only people that work at the school can have their children attend that that child care facility.

And he said why don't you just open add up to everybody so I'm a good idea.

So we put a little bill together and that passed the the House and I believe that's passed the Senate.

Now if it hasn't it will here shortly but that's really, really beneficial.

And then another thing then you just you know, people come to you and say hey, you right now if I'm a multi child care facility and I have a number of facilities, we have to have a license for every facility.

Dave, why don't we just have one license for all of our facilities?

Because it's a bunch of paperwork and administrative costs costs a lot of money and a lot of time lot of effort to add a new location so we don't well.

Sixty two percent of our children in the state of Indiana don't have child care so it's a no brainer.

So you just put those two things together and and you know, it works out pretty well and it does go get rid of regulations is always a good thing when we're talking about getting something over the finish line, some celebratory activity within the judicial system in the culinary system of food trucks.

>> I understand they're getting ready potential cheering involved.

You have a bill that's going to boost support for food truck vendors.

>> Yeah.

So food trucks since the pandemic happened it has become really evident that people are wanting to have different ways of providing their food services to the communities that they live and work in.

And one of the things that food truck vendors have had a difficult time with is the different the changes from county to county and taking their food trucks and although the state code is the same from every county, you know your time and temperature and all the food safety is the same.

>> Each county kind of had their own rules when it came to food trucks and this bill is really just seeking to create a portal, a place where the State Health Department, your local health departments and the food trucks to all kind of have one place to come to to get their license to be able to set up where they're going to let the local health departments know and most importantly bring together a work group to kind of put all of this together.

Take a look actually at Allen County.

Have take a look at Marion County, Marion County, Allen County or two of the counties they have the most food truck vendors and I looked when I looked at Allen County I realize that they have a pretty robust system figuring out what kind of food truck you have, what kind of food you serve, figuring all those details out and now taking that and really expanding it across the state of Indiana.

So instead of getting a certificate to serve in 92 counties, you get one statewide food license and you're now able to travel from county to county.

>> And I really it's important to me to hear the voices from the local health departments and that's what that work group we're going to have representatives from each congressional district that will make up that work group.

But the food truck vendors are so excited because this will make it so much easier for them to be able to serve and all the different two counties.

>> It's something that should have happened a long time ago.

Other states have done it.

I really I looked at what Georgia did and it's something I've been working on for four years.

So when I get this across the finish line it will be truly a time to celebrate.

I would encourage any food trucks that want to come down and celebrate with us at the state house to do so we would love to have them down.

>> There you go.

Sounds good for us then.

I'm old.

I'm all in favor review serve they will come.

That's right.

Well and the support continues.

This piece of legislation in twenty twenty five House bill thirteen twenty six building on legislation from twenty twenty three all around the transition to teaching scholarships so effort from two years ago to to expand and it is we're now at the moment well two years ago we put enough money in the budget to fund one hundred teachers per year and that is transition to teaching is someone that has a four year college degree and they decide that hey I'd like to change career paths, I'd like to be a teacher.

And so what we did we worked on a bill and it came to us from Maryland his song out in Eastland County Schools.

But what you can do is you can apply get a scholarship and then in ten months you can get a teaching degree from either Purdue Fort Wayne here or trying but what happens in government is everything's in a silo and there were other program that may be not being utilized fully and so there was money left in one silo and here we were.

We didn't have any money for transition to teaching.

So what we did is we we took money that was unused and rather returning it to the general fund we could use after transition to teaching.

So this year I'm happy to say we'll have two hundred ninety five teachers graduate from that program.

>> So that's just good for our schools.

But most importantly good for our students.

>> Absolutely.

What other legislation that you've authored or sponsored this session would you like to comment on that?

>> We haven't gotten to it at this point.

I think one of the priority bills that I think has been very interesting to talk about just because of who authored it and what what happens with it is Speaker Todd Houston offered a ten hour wait which is a priority Bill and really is just setting up a commission to study the Illinois counties that voted to secede from the state of Illinois because of their high property taxes, because of their high taxes in general and he just said we've got to do something different and to get the attention of their leadership and also just to say this doesn't work what's happening.

So Speaker Houston authored that bill just to set up a commission to take a look at that and it was interesting to hear the to hear the testimony that came through one of the committees I sit on and we had several groups coming from Illinois saying please we need help so that it's been interesting.

I don't know where we'll land on that.

I do know that the companion bill in Illinois, the legislator that filed a companion bill in Illinois that bill is dead so you know, probably won't go anywhere.

But you know, it's just mindful to me and I think to all Hoosiers.

Let's take a look at what we have here in Indiana.

Let's take a look at the things in our community that we're super proud of and the things that are working well and keep building on that and be thankful for some of the things that have been really wins here in Indiana.

Our state government is run very differently from our federal government.

We have a balanced budget.

We have to have a balanced budget.

We have a surplus.

The good thing about a surplus is you then have AAA bond rating.

That means that when schools and municipalities go to borrow money from the bond bank they borrow it at two percent instead of in Illinois which is at nine percent.

All of those things matter in the grand scheme of things and sometimes we as Hoosiers have you know, we we have Hoosier hospital for sure but we sometimes don't realize some of the really great things about living here in Indiana.

And I just I'm super proud of of the decisions that have been made in the legislature and I'm proud of the the legislatures that led legislators that have brought bills this session that are really making a difference and glad for the people that have come downstate and testified on those bills.

We love to hear what Hoosiers think and where they're at on the bills that that we have we've got a long way to go still I know April twenty fourth looks like it's right around the corner but we still got a lot of bills in flux so we'll wait and see where those those end up.

We hit the end of the show right around the corner.

But you do have the final thirty seconds.

Well, I know you talked about it when we opened up here that a lot of people were down with with Governor Brown on Monday and there's a little rally on property taxes.

Wouldn't a little rally do a big rally?

But I would just encourage everyone that's watching.

You know, you need to advocate for the issues that are important to you because when you come down the state house and advocate we listen that's where we get our ideas and so I would encourage everyone you got a voice, use it on a great note to go out and thank you to our guests this evening State Representative Dave Hynie deputy speaker pro tem and state representative Joanna King.

For all of us with prime time, I'm Bruce Haines.

Thank you for joining us as well and we'll see you back here again next week.

Goodbye