Indy Star on Legislative Action
by DougMT on April 12, 2005
The Indy Star has several articles on Monday’s legislative activity.
Parts of Indy Works advance in 2 bills. Mainly this article deals with Indy Works — and I still don’t properly understand the source of the dispute, but Democrats are upset about a provision requiring township approval of merger of fire departments. The article also mentions that the bill moving up the kindergarten enrollment date was not called to the floor. The telephone deregulation bill passed. Vouchers died. And a bill passed that would limit the number of cases a child protection caseworker could have to 17.
Senate passes stay in line budget
The Senate approved its $24.2 billion state spending package Monday and set the stage for tough choices over how much additional money can be spent on public schools and whether cigarette smokers should pay for it.
Republicans, for the most part, banded together to advance the budget proposal, 29-21. The proposal gives schools modest funding increases, although 129 of the state’s 293 school districts still would lose money.
“This is a straight up, stay-in-line budget,” said Sen. Robert Meeks, R-LaGrange, the budget’s chief architect.
The budget stays in line at the expense of public schools, argues Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville. The Senate’s school funding formula sets aside an additional 1.2 percent in 2006 and 1.3 percent in 2007 for schools.
Ruth Holladay’s column on how Hoosiers fighting over time is as old as the railroads. (Prior to railroad initiatives, “noon” was whenever the sun was overhead in your locality. “Railroad time” supplanted “God’s time.”) A hard news story on the DST bill is also in the paper entitled DST Drama: It Fails! It Passes!
Star Editorial approving DST says that DST is an “important push” for Indiana’s economy. (Though I haven’t yet heard an explanation of why these big businesses can keep track of time in Japan –which doesn’t follow DST– but not Indiana. Also I haven’t heard why out of state businesses simply can’t relocate here because of the burden of changing their business systems whereas thousands of Hoosier businesses can change their business systems in 2 months, no problem. As I’ve said before, it’s primarily a sign of disrespect from those in other states — they simply don’t care enough to remember Indiana’s time and a sign of low self-esteem on the part of proponents in that they see Hoosier uniqueness as badges of inferiority rather than simply as differences or sources of pride.)
Editorial: Time to make good on BMV promises. The Star suggests that dress code changes at the BMV are nice, but don’t really do much to address citizen complaints. The prefer some of Mitch Daniels campaign ideas:
During the gubernatorial campaign, Mitch Daniels proposed several common-sense reforms, including extension of the renewal period for driver’s licenses from four to six years; allowing car dealerships to approve titles and registrations at the time of sale; discounted multiyear vehicle registration; and ending forced political donations as part of the price of personalized license plates.
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