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(03/22/02 4:56am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- Four state lawmakers have formed a coalition to promote the use of Interstate 70 and U.S. 41 as the extension of Interstate 69 between Indianapolis and Evansville.\n"Indiana faces a big decision over the coming months that will have major long-term impacts on our state's budget, taxes, farms and forests," the lawmakers said in a letter asking others to join their cause.\n"Studies have shown that the I-70/U.S. 41 route would save thousands of acres of fast-disappearing farmland, save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and avoid destruction of important wildlife habitat areas."\nThe four lawmakers, calling their group "Legislators for a Fiscally Responsible I-69," are Sen. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield; Sen. Mark Blade, D-Terre Haute; Rep. Bob Cherry, R-Greenfield; and Rep. Vern Tincher, D-Riley.\nThe Indiana Department of Transpor-tation is weighing five possible routes to build the interstate, among them a proposal to place the highway farther east of the I-70/U.S. 41 route and run it through largely undeveloped rural territory. A decision is expected sometime this year.\nMembers of the coalition said they want to ensure that the I-70/U.S. 41 route gets fair consideration in the Department of Transportation's route selection process.\nTheir letter said Indiana has lost 1 million acres of farmland since 1990, the fastest decline in state history, and INDOT's decision could hasten more loss of farmland.\n"My biggest concern is going through virgin farmland and forests and that sort of thing," Gard said. "We want to bring attention to the issue, and I would hope the public would begin to weigh in."\nCherry said the I-70/U.S. 41 route made sense environmentally, but he could support other alternatives as long as they used existing highways where possible.\nRegardless, he said, "The southwest corridor needs to be completed. We are not interested in moving it to Illinois"
(03/21/02 4:05am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- Gov. Frank O'Bannon said Wednesday he will cut $332 million in spending for such things as computers for schools, building repairs, research and development programs and local projects legislators designated for their districts.\nO'Bannon said the cuts, which are on top of $782 million in cuts he already announced, are needed to help shore up a projected $1.3 billion budget deficit that lawmakers failed to fix during the legislative session that ended last week.\nThe bulk of the money would come from gambling revenue in the Build Indiana Fund that is used for state and local projects.\n"I have no choice but to do whatever it takes to address the immediate needs of the budget," O'Bannon said at a Statehouse news conference.\nThe cuts include $64 million for such things as firetrucks, sidewalks, parks and community programs that lawmakers had penciled in for their districts. That drew some grumblings from legislators.\n"Those local projects are important…and I respectfully would resist the wholesale elimination of them at this time," said House Ways and Means Chairman B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend. "I know he's got to do some of that, but I just hate to see it all go in one fell swoop."\nThe Democratic governor will need help from at least one Republican -- state Treasurer Tim Berry or Auditor Connie Nass -- to shift $247 million in Build Indiana Fund money to the state's primary checking account and shrink the deficit.\nThe three officeholders make up the State Board of Finance, which must authorize such a transfer of gambling revenue to the general fund. O'Bannon said he will ask Nass and Berry to meet with him April 8 to consider the transfers.\nNass and Berry said they needed time to review the list of state and local projects that would be cut, but both struck conciliatory tones about O'Bannon's request.\n"I would anticipate that we could come to agreement on many of these projects, if not most or all of them, and be able to assist so that we don't have to increase taxes in the state of Indiana," Berry said.\nO'Bannon said he likely will announce more cuts next week because lawmakers did not approve the tax increases on cigarettes and casinos he sought to close the deficit. He said the next cuts likely will include education.\nHe said the Build Indiana Fund projects were important, but were "extras" the state could live without so huge spending cuts in school operating costs might be avoided.\nThe cuts include $184 million for state projects and $64 million for local projects. The state projects include $40 million set aside for schools to buy computers, $29 million for university technology purchases and $50 million to fund research and development initiatives between universities and private industry.\nThey also include $21 million set aside for community sewer and water projects, $9 million to update voting and registration equipment and $5 million for dams.\nThe administration did not have a list of local Build Indiana projects that will be held up, but they include any of those that have not been approved by the State Budget Committee.\nAlso cut Wednesday were $24.5 million in building repairs at universities and nearly $60 million in such work at other state buildings.\nO'Bannon said he could not say how much more he would have to cut.\nHe said lawmakers not only failed to pass tax increases, they also approved some spending measures and adjourned without giving him full legislative approval he needed to cut $250 million in Medicaid, the state and local health care program for the poor and disabled.\nIn addition, some of his Medicaid spending proposals have been blocked by the courts.\n"I'm turning over every rock to find money that we can use responsibly to shore up the basics of state government and help me preserve school funding as best I can," O'Bannon said.\nO'Bannon has not ruled out calling lawmakers back to the Statehouse for a special session. But he said he cannot force reticent lawmakers to work on the budget deficit if they do not want to, and he has seen no evidence enough of them are willing to do so.\nState Sen. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield, said she approved of the steps O'Bannon took Wednesday, even though some projects in her district might go unfunded.\n"I think everyone is going to have to bite the bullet on this one," she said.\nRep. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said some House Democrats were upset that the governor blamed the entire General Assembly when making his announcement\nBauer said Senate Republicans were primarily responsible for the Legislature's failure to reach a tax-and-budget deal. But he said members of the Democratic caucus felt "betrayed" that O'Bannon did not distinguish between the parties.
(03/18/02 4:35am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- There is fallout from every session of the Indiana General Assembly.\nDuring this one, lawmakers stiffened penalties for animal cruelty, got tougher on potential terrorists and passed a new law making it a crime, in case police have the time to pursue such offenses, to flick lit cigarettes out the window of a moving vehicle.\nRep. Richard Bodiker, D-Richmond, pushed the need for the latter legislation. He was driving home one night with his car window down and got nailed in the face with a lit cigarette butt from a careless trucker barreling down the road in front of him.\nThere's gotta be a law.\nThe littering statute didn't cover it, because its provisions imply something hitting the ground. That distinction counts in a court of law, and legislators addressed it. They are experts at cleaning up the criminal code.\nBut Indiana lawmakers failed to compromise on the bigger picture -- balancing the state budget and overhauling the tax system.\nNow it's up to voters to sort out the blame game.\nOne poll of Indianapolis-area residents showed a majority favored a special session. That might say something, but there are four million people in Indiana who don't live in or next door to the state's biggest city.\n"No taxpayer wants us to come back here for a special session," said House Minority Leader Brian Bosma, who lives in Indianapolis. "In my 16 years here…I've never heard anyone say, 'Go get 'em in a special session."'\nHouse Speaker John Gregg, D-Sandborn, played up the session's accomplishments when talking to the Statehouse press corps for perhaps the last time. Gregg announced last month that he was not seeking re-election.\nAmong other things, lawmakers passed an anti-terrorism bill and came up with a funding source -- Bureau of Motor Vehicle fees -- to start paying for a telecommunications system that will allow emergency personnel to talk to each other on the same frequency.\nInstead of casting a total net of blame on the session, Gregg acknowledged that there were true philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats in the Indiana General Assembly.\nRepublicans were mostly interested in restructuring taxes. Democrats were interested in that, but they also wanted to increase taxes on cigarettes and casinos to shore up the state's $1.3 billion budget shortfall.\nDemocratic Gov. Frank O'Bannon wanted both fixes, but he spent the legislative session giving mixed messages.\nBefore the session, he insisted that balancing the budget and restructuring taxes were two completely separate subjects. When Democrats who control the House merged them, he insisted until the end that they were part of one package that would sink or swim as one.\nO'Bannon changed his definition of dockside gambling, saying he could now accept riverboat casinos being docked permanently.\nBoth political parties sent out mixed messages during this legislative session, and neither party created a public outcry for action.\nGregg isn't surprised about that.\n"We spent six years, and this is something all of us have to shoulder"
(03/08/02 4:30am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- In a Statehouse atrium filled with lobbyists and lawmakers, Gov. Frank O'Bannon made a late-session plea Wednesday for the General Assembly to balance the state's budget and restructure taxes.\nO'Bannon did not use the words tax increases, but he has repeatedly said they are necessary to shore up a projected $1.3 billion budget deficit and shield homeowners from much higher property tax bills expected under the pending reassessment.\n"Never before have Indiana lawmakers been given the opportunity to do so much and take such bold action…and make decisions that will make or break our state\'s progress in the short term as well as the long term," O'Bannon told members of a conference committee on tax and budget matters.\nO'Bannon has said that unless lawmakers raise some taxes to balance the budget, he will be forced to make major funding cuts in education and social services.\nHe couched such threats in calmer terms Wednesday by telling lawmakers to give "Hoosiers what they need to keep our schools on the great track they are on" and keep important services available.\nLawmakers face a March 14 regular session deadline to compromise on the budget and tax restructuring.\nWednesday marked the first conference committee meeting this session on budget issues, and for the first time in recent years, it was held in the spacious Statehouse atrium.\nOver the coming week, fiscal leaders will try to reconcile tax-and-budget plans passed by the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-ruled Senate.\nBoth would raise some taxes in order to cut property taxes and restructure business taxes. But the plan passed by the Senate would not use any revenue from tax increases to close the budget gap.\nRepublicans have insisted that O'Bannon, a Democrat, can manage the deficit on his own by making spending cuts, account transfers and tapping reserves.\n House Republicans, outnumbered 53-47 in that chamber, said Wednesday they were willing to step back some on that stand. They said if any final plan includes new tax revenue from gambling, they could accept it being used for the budget deficit.\n"It's time to compromise, quite frankly, and we have done that," said Rep. Jeff Espich of Uniondale, the fiscal leader for House Republicans.\nOn another front Wednesday, Republican state Auditor Connie Nass said her office had identified $278 million in various funds outside of the state's primary checking account that could be used to close the budget gap.
(02/28/02 4:20am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- Motorists in Indiana would eventually pay 7 cents more in state taxes per gallon of gasoline under legislation approved by the Senate Wednesday.\nThe bill, approved 38-10, is likely headed to a conference committee where differences between it and a 2-cent increase passed by the House will be sought.\nA gas-tax increase has enjoyed bipartisan support this session and is backed by many Republicans who oppose any tax increase to help shore up the state's projected $1.3 billion budget deficit.\nUnder the plan passed by the Democrat-controlled House and the one approved Wednesday by the Republican-ruled Senate, all revenue from a gas-tax increase would be spent on state and local road projects.\nIU economist Morton Marcus said that makes a gas-tax increase an easier sell in the General Assembly.\n"In the minds of most people there is a close relationship between the tax and gasoline usage and highways," Marcus said. "It fits nicely into the concept of benefit taxation, which is untrue of the sales tax and income tax and property tax."\nWith those taxes, Marcus said, "there is no clear relationship between what you pay and what you get in terms of government services."\nUnder the bill passed Thursday, the gas tax would increase from 15 cents to 18 cents per gallon in 2003. It would go up another 2 cents the next year and another 2 cents in 2005. Each penny increase would generate about $33 million in new revenue for road construction.\nThe revenue would be divided equally between state and local road projects, but one penny of the increase would be used to fund about $350 million worth of bonded construction during the first year of the increase.
(02/20/02 5:31am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- Tuesday, the state Senate's top fiscal leader challenged lawmakers to "seize the moment" for overhauling Indiana's tax system this session.\nSenate Finance Chairman Larry Borst, R-Greenwood, presented more details of his tax-restructuring plan and said the General Assembly has its best opportunity in nearly 30 years to cut property taxes and promote lasting economic development.\n"Now is the time to do it when everyone is on the same page and the same wavelength," said Borst, who has spent nearly three decades helping shape Indiana's fiscal policy.\nBut not all Republicans who control the Senate share in Borst's call for tax restructuring this session. He detailed his plan at a news conference by himself, and opened his remarks by saying it was only his program.\n"In no way do I speak for the Republican caucus," Borst said.\nHe said the proposal would clear his committee Thursday, but he made no prediction about how it would fare before the full Senate. Republicans control the chamber 32-18.\nSenate President Pro Tem Robert Garton, R-Columbus, said last week he still believed tax restructuring should wait beyond this session, when more information about the effects of the unfolding reassessment will be known. Garton said he believed most Senate Republicans feel the same way.\nIn a twist from statements in recent years, Borst commended Democratic Gov. Frank O'Bannon for showing leadership in trying to restructure taxes, and he said lawmakers should capitalize on the momentum O'Bannon and some top lobbying forces are providing.\nBorst drew unusual praise from House Ways and Means Chairman B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, who pushed a tax-restructuring and deficit-reduction package through the Democrat-controlled House last month.\nBauer noted that Borst's plan did nothing to shore up the state's budget deficit, and he said it gave more tax breaks to businesses than did the House plan. But he said Borst had shown leadership in trying to keep tax-restructuring alive.\n"I really appreciate the fact that he's approached this as something that has to be done now, and he's done it in-depth and he's done it with his usual skill of pulling many different elements together," Bauer said.\nBorst's plan would raise sales taxes from five percent to six percent and individual income taxes from 3.4 percent to 3.6 percent. Cigarette taxes would be increased by 39.5 cents per pack, and the riverboat casino admission tax would be raised.\nRevenue generated by those tax increases would be used to cut property taxes for homeowners. Instead of seeing big tax increases because of court-ordered changes in assessments next year, property taxes for homeowners statewide would drop an average of 25 percent, Borst said.\nPart of that would be accomplished by shifting $1.4 billion in school operating costs from local property tax rolls to the state. And residents would be allowed to deduct the first $25,000 in assessed value of their homes from the property tax.\nBusinesses would pay a new franchise tax and a new, 1.3- percent tax on their payroll, but $1.3 billion in property taxes on business inventory and equipment would effectively be eliminated.\nBorst said the plan was "pretty much" revenue-neutral, meaning it would cut as much in taxes as it raised. But he said none of the new tax revenue would be used to shore up the state's budget deficit.\nSen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said Monday he would vote for the plan in committee, but he did not know how it would fare on the Senate floor.\nKenley said Borst's plan was so comprehensive and "forward-thinking" it would take time for the public to digest it and believe the tax increases will be used entirely to cut other taxes.\n"So members of the Senate are going to be put on the spot of having to get out ahead of their constituency if they are going to be interested in doing this," Kenley said.\nBauer said he hoped Borst was able to get a plan through the Senate and that a final plan could be worked out in a House-Senate conference committee.
(02/12/02 5:11am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- Republicans who rule the Indiana Senate took their first action Monday on a tax-and-budget plan approved by the Democrat-controlled House by gutting the bill and sending a \"blank slate" to the Senate Finance Committee.\nThe Senate Rules Committee removed tax-increase and tax-restructuring provisions, leaving only language dealing with a study committee and a title change of another committee intact.\n"I say let's continue the discussion but let's give the Senate Finance Committee a blank slate to work with," said Sen. Joseph Zakas, R-Granger.\nProcedurally, the move allowed Senate Republicans to advance the bill without initially voting on any tax-increase provisions. Republicans said it was only considered first by Rules because all legislation that would create committees or commissions must clear that panel.\nSen. Earline Rogers of Gary, one of the outnumbered Democrats on the Rules Committee, said that gutting the bill's substantive provisions was "ludicrous."\n"This kind of discounts all of the work and all of the thought processes that have gone into this legislation in the House," Rogers said.\nBut Senate Finance Chairman Larry Borst, R-Greenwood, said he already had planned to make big changes in the plan.\n"I'm going to use very little of it anyway," he said.\nThe 360-page bill that barely cleared the Democrat-controlled House would increase sales taxes, raise taxes on cigarettes and casinos and suspend two tax cuts approved in 1999.\nSome of the new revenue would be used to close the state budget deficit and some would be used to cut property taxes to protect most homeowners from big tax increases expected from the pending reassessment.\nBorst's committee plans an initial hearing on the issue Thursday, but it will likely be next week before a detailed Senate GOP version of the bill is presented.\nBorst has said the new plan likely will provide more property tax relief for homeowners and more emphasis on restructuring business taxes to promote economic development. The latter could include ways of essentially eliminating the inventory tax and business personal property taxes.\nBut Borst and many Senate Republicans still say tax increases are not needed to shore up the budget deficit, which is projected to top $1 billion by July 2003.\nThat stance concerns Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Bloomington, and House Ways and Means Chairman B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend.\n"I think there are some people who either because of political reasons or because they don't understand how the budget works believe that there isn't really a budget deficit or that we're exaggerating it or inventing one," said Simpson.\nBauer said the real struggle in the Senate "is for them to face the reality of a budget crisis"
(11/13/01 4:17am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- It was never supposed to be a review to determine whether Indiana should have the death penalty, and it isn't going to end with any such conclusion. Not officially.\nIndiana's capital punishment statute and system got a stamp of approval, however, and it's likely to last for years.\nWhen Gov. Frank O'Bannon took the dormant Criminal Law Study Commission from his shelf of available boards and commissions and committees and councils, and blew the dust off in March 2000, he gave the panel that hadn't met for a year a sort-of mission:\nTake your time, no hurry, but take a close look at Indiana's death penalty law and determine whether it's being used fairly and has adequate safeguards to keep innocent people from being executed.\nThere was no public outcry in Indiana for such a review and not a hint that the General Assembly would seriously consider repealing the law. But the death penalty was in the news nationally and next door, and it was an election year.\nA few months before, Illinois Gov. George Ryan halted executions in his state to evaluate a system that reportedly had sent at least 13 wrongly convicted people to death row. President Clinton asked all governors to closely examine their statutes and systems.\nSo O'Bannon ordered a review.\nThe Criminal Law Study Commission will meet once more next month to consider recommendations for changing the death penalty law in Indiana, but after 16 months of review, no major changes are expected.\nThe panel already has concluded that no system is fail-safe, humans will make errors, but Indiana's death penalty system is about as good as it gets when it comes to safeguards and fairness.\n"I think there will be renewed confidence in the administration of the death penalty in Indiana given this thorough review," said Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter.\n"We've heard of incidents in other states that have prompted some expeditious action to put the entire process on hold. That didn't occur in Indiana."\nIn fact, when the study was being conducted, O'Bannon declined to stop two executions.\nGerald Bivins, convicted of killing the Rev. William Radcliffe during a robbery at an Interstate 65 rest area in 1991, could have further appealed his case. He chose not to, and O'Bannon chose not to step in.\nThad Nation, O'Bannon's press secretary at the time, said the ongoing review was not a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty in Indiana.\n"The governor is the original author of the current death penalty statute," Nation said then, before the execution last March. "He sees this as a good time to review it and make any needed changes, but by almost anyone's estimation, we have a very strong death penalty law in Indiana."\nJim Lowery, convicted of killing Mark and Gertrude Thompson in their Tippecanoe County home in 1979, had exhausted his appeals. He then sought clemency, hoping O'Bannon might commute his sentence to life in prison without parole.\nO'Bannon declined to do so.\n"Twenty-four jurors and 23 judges have found the death penalty appropriate in this case," O'Bannon said in his written decision denying clemency. "The process was fair, and I defer to the findings of the courts."\nDuring the official state government study, a group of newspapers did an investigation and concluded that the death penalty is applied inconsistently.\nThe seven newspapers concluded after a yearlong examination that the fate of a murderer can depend on where the crime occurred, the costs involved, the victim's family, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and lengthy appeals.\nLarry Landis, executive director of the Public Defender Council, calls it a "lottery" death penalty system.\nHe's on the Criminal Law Study Commission, and hopes to convince the panel during its last meeting next month to recommend that more safeguards be written into the law.\nThe chances he will get the panel, let alone the General Assembly, to go along seem next to nil.\nIf death penalty opponents thought this government review would lead to repeal of Indiana's capital punishment statute, they were wrong. It never even led to a moratorium.
(10/17/01 3:55am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- Cable subscribers trying to recoup past late fees from Time Warner Cable will make their case before the Indiana Supreme Court Wednesday.\nTwo Indianapolis customers sued the company in 1998 for allegedly overcharging those who pay their bills late. Lawyers for plaintiffs Kelly Whiteman and Jean Wilson are still seeking class-action status for other Indiana customers.\n"There are two parts to the claim," said attorney Karl Mulvaney. "One is the past damages, and the other is injunctive relief to stop the payments in the future."\nThe plaintiffs claim that Time Warner Cable already charges more than enough to make ends meet, and the $4.65 per month late fee is excessive and is a "penalty and profit-generating device."\n"Our position is the (basic) rate allows for recovery of all costs of doing business, it allows for a profit on the business and includes the cost of having a billing department and having personnel," Mulvaney said.\nThe Indiana Court of Appeals handed the plaintiffs a partial defeat earlier this year, saying cable subscribers do not have the right to be compensated for past late fees. The ruling was based on the voluntary payment doctrine.\nAccording to a legal brief for Time Warner Cable, the plaintiffs knew they would be assessed a late fee, but nonetheless paid their bill late, were assessed late fees and paid them without protest.\n"It is well settled in Indiana and throughout the country that a party who voluntarily incurs an obligation in this manner must raise any legal challenge before paying it," the brief states.\n"Courts have explained that otherwise they would be occupied with voluntary transactions based upon claims of legal mistakes raised years after payments have been received and spent."\nTime Warner said the late fee covers expenses the company incurs when customers don't pay promptly.\n"We certainly believe the Court of Appeals was correct in their findings," said Buz Nesbit, Time Warner's Indianapolis division president. "I believe that we were correct in our position and I hope that the Supreme Court agrees with us."\nEven though oral arguments are scheduled Wednesday, the Supreme Court does not have to decide the case. If it decides to take the case, it could be several weeks or more before a ruling is issued.
(11/17/00 3:26am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- State lawmakers are unlikely to override vetoes by Gov. Frank O'Bannon when they convene Tuesday to make preparations for the 2001 legislative session.\nHouse Speaker John Gregg said Thursday he would consider taking up only one of 11 bills vetoed in March -- a measure that would give tax cuts to Indiana insurance companies -- and even that was unlikely.\n"The main reason we won't (do overrides) is number one, it's normally a ceremonial day, and number two, we have members who won't be familiar with them yet," said Gregg, D-Sandborn.\nBut he said overrides would be considered when the session begins in earnest in January.\nSenate President Pro Tem Robert Garton, R-Columbus, said he did not plan to consider overrides Tuesday on two of the 11 vetoed bills that originated in the Senate.\nThe official name of Tuesday's gathering is Organization Day, a day traditionally set aside in November to do house-cleaning chores before legislative sessions begin in January.\nLast year, Organization Day turned into a six-day "mini session" in which lawmakers approved seven bills, including measures that had failed to pass in the confusing final days of the 1999 session.\nAfter the 2000 session ended in early March, O'Bannon vetoed several bills because he said they could negatively impact the state's coffer.\nJust days prior to the end of that session, news broke that a tax cut approved in 1999 would cost the state $200 million more than originally projected. At the time, O'Bannon said that could reduce the state's budget surplus below $1.1 billion, the amount he maintains is needed to protect the state from an economic downturn.\nAmong other things, the vetoed bills would have cut the insurance premium tax rate from 2 percent to 1.3 percent over five years, and increase research and development tax credits as a way to lure more high-tech jobs to the state.\nO'Bannon said he wanted to wait until the fiscal-year close-out in July to determine whether incoming revenues would make the spending bills affordable. In July, he said it seemed as if they would.\nHe said then that if economic conditions warranted, he would encourage lawmakers in November to override his vetoes of some spending bills.\nBut O'Bannon has said recently that revenue growth might be falling below earlier projections. A new fiscal forecast is due out in December.\n"The governor is hopeful that legislators will take a comprehensive view of the state's fiscal condition and budgetary needs when considering action on Organization Day," O'Bannon spokeswoman Cheryl Reed said Thursday.\n"While the state is in good fiscal health, the most prudent course of action is probably to wait until the December forecast when we have a more definitive, objective and nonpartisan picture"