Global Courant 2023-04-29 01:03:12
A messy state budget deal received the approval of Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb on Friday shortly after receiving final approval from state legislators.
Republican legislative leaders scrambled much of Thursday to add about $300 million in school funding after receiving complaints that a costly expansion of eligibility for Indiana’s private school voucher program would leave traditional schools with small increases in funding.
The revised deal finally got the votes of the House and Senate in the early hours of Friday, clearing both Republican-dominated chambers in near-party line votes that ended around 2:30 a.m.
INDIANA BUDGET PLAN WITH SCHOOL VOUCHER EXTENSION AND ACCELERATED TAX REDUCTIONS
Despite not seeking an expansion of the voucher program, nor an acceleration of planned income tax cuts that GOP lawmakers had included in the deal, Holcomb said at a Statehouse press conference that he was “happy” to see the two-year budget of $ 44.6 billion would sign.
“It’s a budget with an impact on generations,” said the Republican governor. “Her policies and plans, like us, can be seen as a blueprint for growth, and we will be busy building and growing across the state.”
Holcomb pointed to budget provisions such as $500 million for a new round of regional economic development grants and about $120 million to meet his request to eliminate school equipment and textbook rentals charged to families.
Lawmakers didn’t give Holcomb everything he wanted — prominently deciding to provide about two-thirds of the funding requested by the governor to expand the county’s health department programs. The funding would be aimed at improving the state’s low rankings in areas such as obesity, smoking and life expectancy.
Holcomb said it was the start of an effort to make it one of his top budget priorities after a state commission found Indiana’s local public health spending ranks 45th among the states.
Indiana Republican Governor Eric Holcomb approved the legislature’s consensus budget plan on Friday. (AP Photo/Tom Davies)
State Commissioner for Health Dr. Kristina Box said the legislature has “provided the key components we need to move forward.”
“There are some prerequisites involved, but it’s all things that are very, very workable, and we’re really excited to get started,” Box said.
Conservative lawmakers crammed several other issues onto Holcomb’s desk during the four-month legislative session that he wasn’t looking for — and drew crowds of protesters to the Statehouse.
Holcomb has already signed into law a measure barring transgender youth from accessing drugs or surgeries that aid transition and requiring those currently on drugs to stop by the end of the year. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana has filed a lawsuit to prevent the ban from taking effect on July 1.
The governor, meanwhile, has not yet said whether he will sign a bill requiring schools to notify parents if their child wants to change a name or pronoun at school or another that could make it easier to ban books from public school libraries if they get complaints. be sexually inappropriate for children.
A leader of the state’s largest teachers’ union said lawmakers “missed the mark” on helping schools across the state or fighting the loss of teachers leaving the classroom.
“Most of what happened during the session had nothing to do with that,” said Dan Holub, executive director of the Indiana State Teachers Association. “We’re obsessed with social issues and things like that, and that’s actually made teachers think twice about the profession they’ve chosen.”
Public school groups and Democrats argued that the cost of the voucher expansion falls short of traditional public schools, with funding rising less than inflation.
The voucher expansion in the original budget deal announced Wednesday by Republican leaders would consume more than $500 million of the nearly $1.2 billion increase planned for overall K-12 funding over the next two years.
IN GOP LAWMAKER PUSHING NEW STATE BUDGET PLAN THAT EXPANDS PRIVATE SCHOOL VOUCHER PLAN ENROLLMENT
The revised plan added about $300 million to boost the total increase to about $1.5 billion — increasing funding for public school districts to 5.4% in the budget’s first year and 1.3% in the second year, according to projections from the impartial Legislative Services Agency.
The voucher expansion includes raising the income limit for a family of four from the current $154,000 to $220,000 and removing the requirement for most families that at least one child had previously attended a public school.
Senate Democratic leader Greg Taylor of Indianapolis said schools will not be able to significantly increase the lagging teacher salary in Indiana as state funds are diverted to the voucher program.
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“We can’t be at the bottom of the barrel on education, at the bottom of the barrel on public health, and get into a legislature, if we know these things are true, and they decide that we focus on making sure the rich get more aid,” Taylor said.
