Short Session Starts With a Flurry of Activity

The Governor and General Assembly have continually heard from Hoosier employers on the need for a skilled workforce – and better aligning state programs with job demand. The good news is bills are being introduced to address those concerns. While only a handful of measures have been released to date, we are seeing legislation related to training tax credits and grants, as well as efforts to streamline current workforce programs. We anticipate a comprehensive workforce bill (1002) will be introduced in the House later next week.

The Governor’s computer science bill (SB 172) requires all public schools to offer a one-semester elective computer science course at least once each school year to high school students. We expect a hearing on this measure in the next two weeks. Both this and the workforce efforts are 2018 Indiana Chamber legislative priorities.

Senate Bill 257 has been introduced by Sen. Travis Holdman (R-Markle) to serve as the beginning of discussions on clarifying the exempt status of computer software sold as a service (SaaS) – a Chamber priority. Holdman is also authoring another major piece of tax legislation, SB 242, which contains a variety of tax matters. The House bills are coming in too, with a good number already filed addressing local tax issues.

Speaking of local matters, the Chamber is very pleased to see that the House Republican agenda includes a bill that will make township government more effective and efficient by the merging of townships (approximately 300) where less than 1,200 people reside. Such local government reform has been a longstanding Chamber goal.

In addition to SB 257, other technology-related bills include Rep. Ed Soliday’s (R-Valparaiso) autonomous vehicle (AV) proposal to position Indiana to safely test and implement AV technology with automobiles. The bill also will address truck platooning, which uses GPS and WiFi technology to allow trucks to more closely follow each other for greater efficiency, on Indiana roads.

Rural broadband, high-speed internet and small cell wireless structures technology all will be topics for the Legislature to debate. Certified technology parks also will be discussed with the idea to have an additional capture of sales and income tax revenue for those complexes that perform well.

In health care, enabling employers to ask prospective employees if they are smokers not only heads the Chamber’s wish list but also appears to be gaining traction this go-round. Eliminating the special protections (currently in state statute) for smokers is found in SB 23 and will be guided by Sen. Liz Brown (R-Fort Wayne). The bill has a pretty good chance of getting a hearing in the Senate – which would be a first. Previously, a measure was taken up in a joint hearing in the House.

Increasing the tobacco tax and raising the legal age for smokers to 21 are policies that likely will be included in a bill to be introduced by Rep. Charlie Brown (D-Gary). The Indiana Chamber is supportive of both.

Nine utility-related bills are on our radar screen at this point. They range from tweaks of last year’s big legislation (like SB 309, which addressed rising energy costs and a long-standing struggle between the investor-owned electric utilities and larger consumers of energy) to compulsory sewer connection, excavation for infrastructure, regulation of solar energy systems in homeowners’ associations and new water legislation. Separately, Sen. David Niezgodski (D-South Bend) has a proposed ban on coal tar pavement sealer, which we oppose.

There are also a number of bills proposing changes to Indiana’s alcohol laws including: Sunday sales, cold beer sales by grocery and convenience stores, and increases in fees and penalties.

The Chamber will be providing more details on all of these bills as the session progresses.

For anyone who wants a refresher about how legislation becomes law, the Chamber has a handy guide free of charge. It includes a diagram of the bill process, a glossary of often-used terms and a look at where bills commonly get tripped up.

Additionally, the Chamber will be providing updates and issuing pertinent documents throughout the session at www.indianachamber.com/legislative.

Teachers Deserve (and Need) Our Support

This column by Indiana Chamber VP of Education and Workforce Development Policy Caryl Auslander originally appeared in Inside INdiana Business.

As we near the beginning of a new school year, what better opportunity is there to celebrate the people who make such a positive impact on so many lives.

I’m talking, of course, about teachers. That makes it all the more troubling to see recent stories about a dramatic decline in education school enrollment, as well as district difficulties in finding qualified teachers for available openings.

The all-too public disputes between the Indiana Department of Education and the State Board of Education are hopefully a thing of the past. There is no worse example, or bigger drain on morale, than adult battles that can – and should – be avoided.

As a wife, daughter and sister of teachers, I see firsthand the passion and commitment they bring to their work. As someone advocating in the areas of education and workforce development, I’m in constant contact with others who share that dedication to seeing all students have the opportunity to succeed.

I’m proud that my employer has a mission that calls for providing “economic opportunity and prosperity for the people of Indiana” and leads an Indiana Vision 2025 plan that boasts Outstanding Talent as its most important economic driver.

I’m pleased that our state has opened new doors for families through the introduction and expansion of charter schools and vouchers. These schools and these programs, like all others in education, however, must continue to demonstrate proven results. There is no room for underperformance in this critical enterprise.

I’m happy that the Indiana Chamber and its allies have helped deliver alternative routes for persons holding professional degrees to share their expertise by becoming teachers. The success stories of these career changers and the lives they impact continue to grow.

I’m encouraged that full-day kindergarten options are in place and that preschool pilot programs are taking off in a few selected counties. The expedient expansion of early education, especially for low-income and other disadvantaged population, is hopefully among the next steps. The results are proven and the need is great.

But what about those teachers? They are the MOST critical factor in each student’s ability to obtain the quality education that allows them to become productive members of society. There is no doubt that more needs to be done to attract, retain and reward the best teachers. “More” includes:

  • Increasing starting pay for teachers to attract the best and brightest to the profession
  • Paying our best teachers more money
  • Directing more than the 57% (as of 2013) of every K-12 dollar that reaches the classroom
  • Providing meaningful feedback and professional development for all educators
  • Celebrating teaching successes and lifting up those who have the greatest classroom impact

While teachers play that crucial role, discussions about public education need to focus on the students. Equal access to quality education and success in school for every child is the most important social justice issue of our time. That quality education is the surest way to break cycles of poverty, transform individual lives, lift up our communities and our state, and attract the best employers and jobs.

Thousands of well-paying jobs are going unfilled today and our future ability to secure the best jobs relies on what we do now to provide educational opportunities for all. Every child, every school and every community benefits when all children are learning and succeeding.

Education is not about public versus private or unions versus politicians. It’s about parents, educators, employers, communities and all others coming together and creating an expectation, opportunity and clear path to success for every child.

Report: No Room for Rivalry in School Reform

The contentious relationship between traditional public schools and charter schools needs to end, according to a report issued as part of a Brookings Institution project. There are lessons to be learned, the authors say, from both the successes and failures of charter operations. Pilot programs in Houston and Denver are demonstrating the potential. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Early data show that the strategy – applied in Houston and Denver pilot programs – yielded “promising” results, according to the report, titled "Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools" and released Thursday by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution.

The study could help improve cooperation between charter schools and traditional schools, which have often viewed each other as competitors. The debate about whether charter schools or traditional schools are more effective is a false one and misses the central point, said secretary of Education Arne Duncan at the Hamilton Project’s education forum Thursday in Washington.

“The question isn’t: Do we need more charter schools, traditional schools, gifted schools, or magnet schools?” he said. “We need better public schools. Kids don’t know what kind of school they go to. All they ask is, ‘Do I have a good teacher?’ ”

The report focuses on the work that Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer did with the Houston Independent School District (HISD) to develop a pilot program targeting nine of Houston’s lowest-performing middle and high schools in 2010-11 and 11 elementary schools in 2011-12.

Dr. Fryer, who is the faculty director of Harvard’s Education Innovations Laboratories (EdLabs), studied 35 charter schools in New York and discovered the top five practices that separate low- and high-achieving charter schools: (1) extended time at school, (2) strong administrators and teachers, (3) data-driven instruction, (4) small-group tutoring, and (5) creating a “culture of high expectations.”

Health Care Reform: What Happens Now? (Seminar, ePub Can Help)

The Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act.  The Court’s decision means that employers are facing upcoming compliance obligations and important strategic decisions. Join us for a half-day seminar that will discuss the Supreme Court’s opinion and what it means for future compliance with the ACA. Among the topics to be discussed are:

  • The creation and distribution of the Summary of Benefits and Coverage
  • Form W-2 reporting obligations to disclose the cost of group health plans
  • New fees imposed on health plans for patient-centered research
  • New limits for health flexible spending accounts
  • State-based health insurance exchanges
  • Employer penalties for failing to provide minimum essential health coverage and effects on future plan design
  • The expansion of the Department of Labor’s audit program to include demonstrations of health plans’ compliance with the ACA

The Chamber will also soon be offering an ePub (onlne publication) to help you comply ($99 or $74.25 for members). Set for an October release, you can pre-order the book online.

Botht the seminar and the publication are put together by Ice Miller LLP.

Reactions to Local Government Reform Progress Mixed

It’s no secret the Indiana Chamber is a strong proponent of local government reform, and we’re directly involved with MySmartGov. Although we’re encouraged that legislation curbing nepotism in local government passed this year, to this point the going has been rather slow in getting Indiana legislators to eliminate duplication at the township level. The Indiana Economic Digest has an interesting article on the topic, relaying how the gentlemen who created the Kernan-Shepard Report — the document that initially stated the case for reform — don’t see the progress thus far as being entirely negative.

Getting property tax bills out on time may not seem like a headline-grabber, but for supporters of a sweeping government reform effort, it’s big news.

Four years ago, not a single county in Indiana hit the deadline for sending out tax bills that generate revenues needed to keep the gears of local government moving. The following year, only two did.

Last year, 90 of Indiana’s 92 counties made the deadline.

The difference has saved cities and schools millions in interest payments on tax anticipation loans while waiting for their counties to collect and hand over tax dollars.

State finance officials credit the dollars saved to a recommendation made in December 2007 by the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform.

The bipartisan commission spent months coming up with a road map to streamline local government. In a report that called for sweeping changes, it issued 27 recommendations — including the one that led to the consolidation of township assessors under the county and a shift to more professional assessment standards.

But only about one-third of those 27 recommendations have come to fruition since.

That’s not enough for Gov. Mitch Daniels, who created the commission. Talking to reporters Monday — just two days after the Indiana General Assembly closed Daniels’ last legislative session — the governor bemoaned the fact that much of the bipartisan commission’s recommendations have met a bipartisan wall in the Legislature.

“I continue to be disappointed that we didn’t get more than one-third done,” Daniels said.

That’s not how one of the men who headed the commission’s work sees it, though.

Retiring Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard is the Republican who co-chaired what became known as the “Kernan-Shepard commission” with former Gov. Joe Kernan, a Democrat.

He thinks progress on local government reform has been impressive, given the resistance to change a system put largely in place before Indiana became a state.

Shepard recalls a conversation with commission members just as they were getting ready to release the 2007 report that called for virtually eliminating township government while consolidating hundreds of school and library districts and imposing new rules for financial accountability.

One member said it would be a “miracle” if everything in the report got done. Shepard said the response from another commission member was: “‘It’ll be a miracle if anything gets done.’”

So in Shepard’s estimation, getting one-third done “is a pretty good outcome.”

In the session that just ended, lawmakers passed a bill with roots in the Kernan-Shepard recommendations: Aimed at eliminating conflicts of interest and reducing nepotism in local government, it bars a local government employee from taking office as an elected official of the government he or she works for. It also bans a local government employee from supervising a relative in a local government job.

Similar legislation failed in past sessions.
 

Questions Remain on Employer Health Care Costs

Bridget Scott of FirstPerson Benefit Advisors talks with Tom Schuman of BizVoice magazine about health care reform and communicating with employees about ways to help control benefit costs.

Also, keep your eye out for a new publication, Health Care Reform for Indiana Employers, authored by Ice Miller, to be released this spring by the Indiana Chamber.

Governor to Support Overdue Government Reforms

The Indiana Chamber and MySmartGov have been champions of sensible government reform in Indiana, and have supported suggestions from the Kernan-Shepard Report that would eliminate townships, among other excesses. The Evansville Courier & Press now reports Governor Mitch Daniels will firmly put his weight behind these measures in the 2012 session:

Gov. Mitch Daniels will make one last push for local government reforms – this time, a select and scaled-back set of them – during the final legislative session of his administration, he announced Friday.

Daniels unveiled his legislative agenda for the Indiana General Assembly’s 10-week 2012 session, which starts Jan. 4, during a speech at the Kiwanis Club of Indianapolis.

He said he will lobby for structural changes at both the township and county levels, as well a crackdown on conflicts of interest among municipal workers who also sit on the elected bodies that set the budgets for their employers.

It’s another try at implementing more of the recommendations offered in 2007 by a blue-ribbon panel chaired by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard.

This year, as freshman Rep. Kevin Mahan, R-Hartford City takes over the chairmanship of the House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee, Daniels said he believes the conditions are right for more progress than he has made in the past.

“We’re going to try to approach it in a little simpler way,” Daniels said.

He said he hopes four local government changes that have stalled out in previous sessions can gain more traction this year. Those four are:

– Allowing counties to switch their executive structure from three-member groups of commissioners to a single county commissioner.

– Abolishing three-member township advisory boards that oversee township trustees’ budgets and bumping their fiscal oversight duties up to county councils.

– Eliminating nepotism – that is, the ability for local elected officials to hire their relatives to do the area’s work.

– Restricting “conflicts of interest,” or situations where those who are paid by local government, such as police, firefighters, park employees and more, also serve on the councils that set their budgets.

“I think if we could get action on two, three, four fronts like those, this would be good. Those are some important reforms. I’ve always believed that we wouldn’t do this in one or two big gulps; it would have to be an incremental process, and this would get the process moving forward,” he said.

Did Idaho Rep. Cross Line with Teacher Email?

Politics and policy came together inappropriately when an Idaho legislator tried to recruit teachers and students to fight proposed education reforms. The line appears to be clear between encouraging government class discussions and actively seeking referendum opponents. The Idaho Statesman reports:

House Minority Leader John Rusche told Rep. Sue Chew on Monday that an email sent from her legislative account to nearly 800 addressees was inappropriate.

The May 12 email suggested high school government classes focus on referendums seeking to overturn three education reform laws authored by GOP Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna.

“Allowing students to register to vote and keeping them informed of upcoming events, such as the referendum, is a way for the teachers to instill the rhetoric from class within their students’ lives,” said the email.

Under the subject line, “Next steps?” the email went to many teachers, mostly to private email accounts, but about 30 went to school accounts.

“It’s inappropriate to talk about encouraging activity in the classroom around a specific position on the referendum,” said Rusche, of Lewiston. “I thought this was over the line and deserved to be corrected. She acknowledged that and said it wouldn’t happen again.”

The day after Chew’s email — but before he knew of it — Luna emailed a warning to school trustees and administrators that educators who engaged in political activity at school were subject to firing for violating their ethics code.

Luna received a copy of Chew’s email four days after his warning memo from Star City Councilman Gary Smith, a recipient. Wrote Smith: “I don’t want my taxes being used for political campaigns, especially when they are using their office and their position to influence our kids.”

Chew said she erred. “We’ll do things better next time,” she said, adding that her aim was to keep young people politically active after a heated debate.

1099 Form Gets 86ed by Senate

Looks like the business community received some good news Tuesday. The 1099 tax form that would have drowned businesses in even more paperwork was rejected by the Senate. CNN has the story:

The Senate voted Tuesday to repeal a part of the health care reform law that would require businesses to file a 1099 tax form with the government for every purchase they make over $600.

The requirement was designed to fight tax fraud and raise money for the health care reform plan Democrats passed last year. But it quickly became unpopular with both parties when businesses complained it would be too burdensome.

The Senate voted 87-12 for the repeal. The House already approved the bill, so it will go directly to the president, who has not said definitively if he will sign the legislation.

The Obama administration and some congressional Democrats, while favoring the repeal, had opposed the way the Republican-sponsored bill made up for the approximately $22 billion the Congressional Budget Offices says would be lost over the next 10 years to pay for health care reform.

However, multiple sources from both parties said they expect the president to sign the repeal.

An aide to Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Nebraksa, said the senator’s effort to repeal the IRS reporting requirement always was aimed at easing the workload on businesses, not at taking a partisan whack at the controversial health care law.

However, other Republicans said they hope this is the first vote of many that pares back the health care law.

"This is a big win for small businesses," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said before the vote Tuesday. "Importantly, it’s also the first of what I hope are many successful repeal votes related to the disastrous health spending bill Democrats passed last year."

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, responding to passage of the legislation, said the administration is "open to working with Republicans and Democrats to improve the health reform law."

"We are pleased Congress has acted to correct a flaw that placed an unnecessary bookkeeping burden on small businesses," Carney said in a written statement. "And the administration remains eager to work with anyone with ideas about how we can make health care better or more affordable for all Americans."

The Circus Continues: What the House Standoff Means

What a circus! And next week is shaping up to possibly be more of the same for Indiana’s House of Representatives. That’s a real shame because the House Democratic walkout jeopardizes a number of key bills that the Indiana Chamber believes would be extremely beneficial to Hoosiers. In fact, the Chamber has actively supported all 11 bills House Minority Leader Pat Bauer is demanding be defeated.

Among them, of course, is the right-to-work legislation that would give workers the choice of whether or not to join a union. There is overwhelming evidence that passing right-to-work this session would be the single biggest action to stimulate Indiana’s economy and bring more jobs to the state. Any policy that can do both of those things over the long term and has the support of seven out of every 10 voters deserves full consideration. Nonetheless, while disappointed, we respect the decision by House Speaker Brian Bosma to steer right-to-work to a study committee where legislators can continue the discussion this summer.

Right-to-work, though, was only one of the labor measures singled out by Bauer, while a collection of important education reform bills were also cited as reasons for the standoff. These education policies would: improve student outcomes and prepare students for the workforce; give parents of low-income students, in particular, more options for getting a quality education for their children; and allow more local managerial control in our schools.

These targeted bills – and nearly 50 in total – have been caught in the political crossfire and are now in limbo. On Thursday, the House Rules Committee voted to extend the deadline for bills to pass out of the House to next Friday (March 4). For the Rules Committee action to go into effect, the House must be able to vote on it – and a quorum of 67 members is needed for that.

The question is whether the House Democrats will reappear next week. It is certainly the Chamber’s hope that legislators return to work and put the best interest of all their constituents first. If they object to certain bills, they should show up, speak their mind and can vote against them. That’s how the process works. Then when election time comes, make their case to the voters. Activity coming to a screeching halt is not acceptable and is a disservice to all Hoosiers.