House Ways and Means Committee passes Braun’s amended budget proposal

INDIANAPOLIS — The House Ways and Means Committee passed an amended House Bill 1001 14-7 on Monday.

State Rep. Jeff Thompson (R-Lizton), the House Ways and Means Chairman, said their version of the bill adds $500 million to Gov. Mike Braun’s budget proposal, mostly for the IDOC and DCS.

”I see [it] really in alignment, really close in alignment,” Thompson said. “There’ll be some amendments; I expect that.”

”They’re going to draw the line; we’re going to draw the line,” State Rep. Gregory W. Porter (D-Indianapolis) said. ”We’re going to financially duke it out.”

The budget proposal shows healthy reserves through the biennium that protect Indiana’s triple-A credit rating. Similar to Gov. Braun’s Freedom and Opportunity Agenda, the proposal increases funding for secured school safety grants and gives the IDOE more flexibility to implement “academic improvement initiatives.”

The proposal also increases funding for Education Scholarship Accounts and Career Scholarship Accounts, the latter of which was a major ask of students and teachers testifying before the committee earlier this month.

”Education, opportunity’s looking great, and to me, that’s the key word: opportunity…for our state to continue to boom,” Thompson said.

The amended bill gives K-12 tuition a boost to the tune of $560 million, a roughly 4% increase increase through 2027. However, House Democrats emphasized roughly a third of those dollars will go to charter schools/the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program.

”Chairman Thompson’s talking about the opportunities with this budget; he uses that word,” Porter said. “I would characterize it as missed opportunities with this budget.”

DeLaney said the fiscal impact of eliminating income limits for the school choice program is in the ballpark of $70 million.

”It does very little for the 90% of our kids in traditional public schools,” State Rep. Ed DeLaney (D-Indianapolis) said.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed concerns federal level turbulence could affect the budget, especially for education and Medicaid.

”We have a real threat of a special session or a fiscal collapse because of what’s going on in Washington,” DeLaney said.

”We can’t control that, but we will keep our eye on that because that will have some point may have an effect on the states,” Thompson said.

This comes as the House prepares to debate SB 1—something HB 1001 doesn’t account for.

”It’s not directly in the budget; it affects the whole budget,” DeLaney said.

”The property tax issue is really unrelated of course,” Thompson said. “That’s going to be in the back on the second half; we’ll start that discussion on the House side then.”

The House as a whole will debate the budget bill on Wednesday.