A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Sen. Kruse has introduced SB 258 which would require 3rd graders who can’t read at a 3rd grade level to be held back. According to an Associated Press article, Governor Daniels is surprised that this bill would cost anything.

The fiscal analysis (pdf) of the bill suggests that remedial reading instruction would cost something as would keeping the kid in school for an extra year. This unremarkable bit of logic was “stunning” to Gov. Daniels:

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels says he was “stunned” that his proposal to hold back third-grade students who can’t read well came with such a large price tag that a key lawmaker said it shouldn’t pass this year.

Daniels says the proposal to end so-called social promotion shouldn’t cost one cent. He and state Superintendent Tony Bennett say schools already are getting paid to teach students how to read so the plan shouldn’t require more cash.

The Daniels and Bennett solution: Magic! I’m picturing them teaching a class with failing 3rd graders: “READ BILLY! WHAT ARE YOU? STUPID! READ, STUPID!” But maybe that’s just my rich imagination.

HB 1131, introduced by Rep. Charlie Brown, has moved out of committee in (1) public places; (2) enclosed areas of a place of employment; and (3) certain state vehicles. (I recently mentioned a similar bill, SB 95, introduced in the Senate.) The Journal & Courier has an article by Eric Weddle on the proposed ban and how it differs from the smoking bans in Lafayette and West Lafayette.

Nothing seems to bring out the rhetoric of liberty and freedom quite like the prospect of having to ingest one’s tobacco in smokeless form, unless maybe it’s having to put on a seat belt. According to one commenter at the Journal & Courier, this would bring us perilously close to the government limiting the number of children we can have.

In any case, a property owner would be free to allow smoking on his or her property unless and until that owner made the decision to invite the public on to the property or use it as a place of employment; then the regulations would kick in protecting the bodily integrity of the public or the employees invited onto the property.

Anyway, that’s a legalistic explanation of the smoking ban. For my part, I’ve come to really detest breathing smokey air and getting it my hair and on my clothes. So, my reasons for preferring a smoking ban are self-interested. My dining experiences have improved quite a bit since such bans became common. It used to be, you never quite knew how effective the separation between smoking and non-smoking sections would be before you sat down to eat. Most of this could be avoided if more smokers showed some simple courtesy. Don’t smoke if your discharge is going to go in someone else’s face. When I decide to have a few beers, I don’t pee in your water. Chili afficianados tend to make an effort not to let their flatulence rip and get indignant (in the name of liberty!) when fellow patrons disapprove. So why do so many smokers think it o.k. to make only cursory efforts to avoid imposing their smoke on strangers?

I guess this is a culture war as much as anything else. My guess is that the smoking ban will pass the House and fail in the Senate.

Rep. Delaney has introduced HB 1034 which modifies the bankruptcy exemptions permitted in Indiana and would seem to have some unintended consequences. Someone going bankrupt in Indiana is allowed to exempt, under IC 34-55-10, certain kinds of property in certain amounts: $300 in cash and deposit accounts, $15,000 in residential property, $8,000 in other kinds of tangible property. HB 1034 would allow a debtor to pile unused portions from one kind of exemption into other kinds. So, I guess the debtor could exempt $23,300 in cash if that’s all he or she had.

This would also have the effect of altering a creditor’s ability to collect a judgment against a debtor. In an attempt to collect on a judgment, typically a creditor can only get a court order on a debtor’s assets to the extent they are not exempt. So, if you go to freeze a bank account, typically you can only get an order if the balance exceeds $300. This bill raises the prospect that you’d have to show the debtor had aggregate assets in excess of $23,300.

Update The bill has passed the House 65-30, but there was an amendment that limited the amount of cash you could have on hand to $10,000. So, if a landlord has, say, a $1,000 judgment against a former tenant for back rent, and he finds the tenant with $10,000 in a bank account, the landlord couldn’t get at it to satisfy the debt.

I guess I don’t mind these exemptions so much for bankruptcy considerations – there is a limit on how frequently you can file bankruptcy – but as an ongoing shield against creditor where the debtor isn’t filing bankruptcy, I think it’s too unfair to the people the debtor has stiffed.

HJR 1, the proposed Constitutional Amendment that will enshrine property tax caps into the Indiana Constitution has passed the General Assembly for the second time and will now be placed on the ballot. These property taxes are already the law, so the amendment would do nothing in the short term. It will only limit options if, for any reason, the law turns out to be unsatisfactory in the future.

Recent polling suggests property tax caps are popular as are, presumably, chocolate and puppies. I don’t believe the polling has any information on whether the people polled understood that the caps were already the law or some notion of the impact property taxes had on sales taxes, income taxes, or government funding. Am I calling people stupid? No, not all of them. There are plenty of stupid people out there. But, by and large, the lack of understanding will come from lack of time and inclination. And, of course, there will be a fair number of people who understand the proposed amendment and favor it. But, I do question whether most of my fellow Hoosiers will understand this when they vote to put it in the state Constitution:

(b) A provision of this section permitting the General Assembly to exempt property from taxation also permits the General Assembly to exercise its legislative power to enact property tax deductions and credits for the property. The General Assembly may impose reasonable filing requirements for an exemption, deduction, or credit.
. . .
(e) This subsection applies to property taxes first due and payable in 2012 and thereafter. The following definitions apply to subsection (f):
(1) “Other residential property” means tangible property (other than tangible property described in subsection (c)(4)) that is used for residential purposes.
(2) “Agricultural land” means land devoted to agricultural use.
(3) “Other real property” means real property that is not tangible property described in subsection (c)(4), is not other residential property, and is not agricultural land.
(f) This subsection applies to property taxes first due and payable in 2012 and thereafter. The General Assembly shall, by law, limit a taxpayer’s property tax liability as follows:
(1) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on tangible property described in subsection (c)(4) may not exceed one percent (1%) of the gross assessed value of the property that is the basis for the determination of property taxes.
(2) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on other residential property may not exceed two percent (2%) of the gross assessed value of the property that is the basis for the determination of property taxes.
(3) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on agricultural land may not exceed two percent (2%) of the gross assessed value of the land that is the basis for the determination of property taxes.
(4) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on other real property may not exceed three percent (3%) of the gross assessed value of the property that is the basis for the determination of property taxes.
(5) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on personal property (other than personal property that is tangible property described in subsection (c)(4) or personal property that is other residential property) within a particular taxing district may not exceed three percent (3%) of the gross assessed value of the taxpayer’s personal property that is the basis for the determination of property taxes within the taxing district.
(g) This subsection applies to property taxes first due and payable in 2012 and thereafter. Property taxes imposed after being approved by the voters in a referendum shall not be considered for purposes of calculating the limits to property tax liability under subsection (f).
(h) As used in this subsection, “eligible county” means only a county for which the General Assembly determines in 2008 that limits to property tax liability as described in subsection (f) are expected to reduce in 2010 the aggregate property tax revenue that would otherwise be collected by all units of local government and school corporations in the county by at least twenty percent (20%). The General Assembly may, by law, provide that property taxes imposed in an eligible county to pay debt service or make lease payments for bonds or leases issued or entered into before July 1, 2008, shall not be considered for purposes of calculating the limits to property tax liability under subsection (f). Such a law may not apply after December 31, 2019.

Eric Bradner has a column in the Evansville Courier Press discussing the progress of the General Assembly so far. He points out that they haven’t actually done anything all that significant yet. The property tax Constitutional amendment is politically popular, and it won’t actually change anything directly — the property tax caps are already law. Township “reform” is pretty much just passing the buck. They allow for local referendums on whether to eliminate townships. They can claim to have done something about the Kernan-Shepard report while at the same time telling their colleagues in township government that they never voted to eliminate the position. I’m not sure the ethics bill fits Bradner’s narrative especially well, but his point is well taken – it involves relatively small changes in response to what is perceived to be a big problem.

Big changes, suggests Bradner, would be moving on Sen. Becker & Rep. Crouch’s proposal to make Medicaid waiver eligibility presumptive for at-home elder care, thereby reducing the hardship involved with sometimes lengthy eligibility determinations. Or, he suggests, redistricting reform could move forward. (On that, see a good analysis of Rokita’s disingenuous craftiness on the subject.) In addition, net metering could be important as could gaming issues.

So far, there has been a little sizzle, but the meat remains to be seen.