House agenda announced

INDIANAPOLIS -- Property tax relief for homeowners, more tax incentives for businesses and giving local governments options to consolidate are part of a lengthy agenda announced Monday by majority House \nRepublicans.\nThe proposals also include attempts to steer more dollars to classroom instruction, moving statewide testing to the spring, and a bipartisan commission to recommend how legislative districts would be redrawn in the future.\nHouse Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, called it a "very aggressive agenda" for a short legislative session that is to end by March 14, but said his members would pursue it vigorously with their 52-48 majority.\n"We have set the bar high for ourselves with this long agenda and we know that," Bosma said.\nBut he said he did not know how much money the agenda could cost the state in direct expenses or lost tax revenue, and said he was not overly concerned about that because he did not believe it would all pass.\n"Much of this hopefully will happen, much will not, and we'll work through the budget issues as we get closer to finding out which of these things will be successful," he said.\nHouse Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, whose Democratic members are eager to regain control of the chamber later this election year, said they would work to help provide property tax relief to homeowners. But he said most of the overall plan was murky.\n"There's a lot of generalities with little detail," said Bauer, D-South Bend.\nA variety of factors is expected to cause property taxes to rise, with some fiscal analysts predicting increases of 10 percent or more in each of the next two or three years. Democrats blame much of that on the Republican budget passed last year.\nThe GOP plan would provide additional homestead credits of 7 percent this calendar year to help slow growth of property taxes on homeowners. Ways and Means Chairman Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, said that would save homeowners about $150 million in expected growth, a cost that would be shifted to the state.\nIn future years, the state would pick up increases in child welfare expenses, which are now paid by counties through property taxes. Future tax rate increases on residential property would be capped at 3 percent annually; seniors could defer property tax payments into later years; and bills could not exceed 2 percent of a home's assessed value.\nThe plan would allow smaller businesses to receive certain tax credits and in some cases increase the amount of state incentives. Those proposals are designed to retain jobs or recruit new businesses, but Bauer said they could cost $80 million at a time when the state is still trying to balance its books.\nThe plan would give local governments, be it a county and a city or a city and a township, authority to merge operations and oversight with approval of their governing bodies and then residents through referendums.\nOn the education front, House Republicans favor more incentives for schools to pool resources to buy such things as buses, energy and food services. The plan would also move the ISTEP-Plus statewide tests to the spring. Both moves are supported by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels.\nThe agenda would provide state money allowing children with autism to attend any public or private accredited schools. Some Democrats say that is a disguised attempt to open the way for more students to attend private schools on the state's dime.\nBosma also touted a proposal to create a five-member commission to recommend legislative redistricting every 10 years. The four legislative caucus leaders would each appoint a member, with a chairman appointed by the chief justice of the state Supreme Court. Drawing new maps is now left to the General Assembly, with the parties that control each chamber wielding the pens.\nBosma said the General Assembly would then meet to establish new districts based on the recommendations, but he was not clear on exactly whether legislators would have to accept the recommendations regardless. He did say it would it a bipartisan process.\nBut Bauer, whose party redrew House maps the past two times, said the plan would take the process "out of the elected officials' hands and basically surrender it to a commission that could be easily manipulated"