Statehouse Report‏ By Gail Riecken

INDIANAPOLIS – It’s been nearly a month since the end of the 2013 legislative session, and I’m still trying to figure out some of the things that went down. Maybe you can help me understand it…

Why would the majorities tell charter schools that they don’t have to pay back $91 million in loans given them by the state? That provision is tucked away in a little corner of the new state budget. It was added at the last minute. As far as I know, no charter school asked for this break.

Why didn’t they give the same break to other taxpayer-supported public schools – like the ones here in Evansville and Vanderburgh County?

After all, public schools had to bear the brunt of close to $600 million in cuts in state support under the last administration. That funding was not restored, and judging by the way some folks are talking, I guess we’re supposed to think that funding never existed.

A suspicious sort might start to think that the people in charge of state government have it in for most public schools.

Think about it….

If you’re the parents of children who are home schooled or go to a private school, you get a $1,000 deduction on your taxes for every child to help defray the costs of their textbooks and other supplies.

If you’re the parents of children who go to public schools, you get no deductions and you still pay the textbook tax.

The Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation is going to get a 2.2 percent increase in state support in the first year of the new budget, and a 1 percent increase in the second year. How will that enable them to keep up with inflation? That won’t even help them make up the support that was cut the last few years.

The likelihood that our local schools will get the level of performance awards we deserve is remote…not when that money is earmarked for wealthy suburban systems like Zionsville, Carmel, West Lafayette and Hamilton Southeastern.

I have talked before about the fact that our state now supports three different types of schools—public, charter, and private—with one pool of money. The size of the pot remains pretty much the same, but it’s being divvied up in ways that give more and more state support to charters and private schools and less to public schools. And remember that public schools don’t get to pick and choose who attends there.

I used to think the idea of strangling public education was a delusion, but now I’m not so sure. Every day, I’m beginning to see that we are moving toward a time when we privatize all education.

I guess if we turn all of our schools into little businesses, it will make people forget that we aren’t doing enough to help the real businesses in our state. We certainly aren’t doing much for economic development in southwest Indiana, that’s for sure.

Consider these circumstances from the last session.

A resounding number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in both chambers supported a plan to give taxpayer dollars to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway—a private corporation. Under this grand plan, the state loans the Speedway money, then gives them the money to pay back the loan.

You heard that correctly.

When we weren’t doing that, many of the same lawmakers chose to effectively kill off the proposed Syngas plant in Rockport, rather than coming up with a reasonable plan that would have enabled the project to proceed with more protections for taxpayers.

Instead, we chose to ditch a project that would have meant 1,500 construction jobs to build the plant, another 200 to staff the facility once it’s built, an additional 300 in the mining industry, and untold numbers of jobs for companies to supply this plant. All of those jobs look to be gone.

Right now, there are a number of projects in Indianapolis that are supported by all Hoosiers, even those who don’t live there, including the football stadium, the Indianapolis Convention Center, the state Fairgrounds and now the Speedway.

We are told about the benefits that come from these projects, and asked to support them, no matter how little they help the rest of this state.

Yet when the Rockport issue was tossed aside with little consideration for its impact on southwest Indiana, we must grin and bear it.

These are the kinds of things that make people think that state government cares too much about Indianapolis, and too little about the rest of Indiana.

What do you think?

As always, please contact me if you have any questions, comments or concerns related to our state government. Here is how you can stay in touch: call my office toll-free at 1-800-382-9842; write to me in care of the Indiana House of Representatives, 200 W. Washington St., Indianapolis, IN 46204; or email me at h77@iga.in.gov.

State Representative Gail Riecken
Indiana House District 77