Lawmakers review session

Several issues cast a shadow over Indiana’s legislative session that ended last week, and lawmakers who represent Jay County don’t expect them to go away.
But they also feel the 2015 “long session” included a lot of good things — a first vote on a balanced budget amendment, increased spending on education, ethics reform and the regional cities program.
With the end of the sometimes contentious legislative session behind them, Republicans Rep. Greg Beumer (R-Modoc) and Sen. Travis Holdman (R-Markle) offered their thoughts Wednesday about the accomplishments and controversies the last four months.
Beumer, who is in his first full term representing District 33 — Jay and Randolph counties and part of Delaware County — touted the Regional Cities program, which established a fund to provide grants and loans to regional development groups. It was funded at $84 million, with that money to come from a tax amnesty program.
He also pointed to the first passage of a balanced budget amendment to the state constitution (it will need to be passed again and then sent to the voters for approval), increased education spending and a budget that keeps most of the state’s $2 billion surplus in tact as key accomplishments of the 2015 session.
Holdman, who represents all of Jay, Adams, Wells and Blackford counties and part of Huntington and Grant counties in District 19, expressed pride in the education bill as well, noting its 2.3-percent increase in spending on schools.
“We funded education at the highest level it’s ever been funded in Indiana history,” he said. “I think that’s pretty remarkable that we were able to pull that off.”

The local legislators were split on a couple of the most controversial issues of the session, with Beumer breaking from his party to vote against Senate Bill 101, better known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and Senate Bill 1, which among other things calls for the state board of education to elect its own chair beginning in 2017. The state superintendent of public instruction currently serves as chair of the board.
“My first vote was just based on my belief that Hoosiers just simply don’t discriminate,” said Beumer of RFRA. He later voted in favor of the “fix” that denoted that the law could not be used to discriminate, saying it was necessary to prevent further negative impact on the state.
Holdman voted in favor of RFRA and said he did not see the backlash coming.
“I was absolutely shocked what we intended to be very similar to what federal law was and what 19 other states had done … how social media and the national news media, I think, just went crazy on this and just turned it into something that it was never intended to be,” he said. “It just really surprised me.”
Both legislators believe the issue was not fully resolved, with Holdman adding that he feels the state’s Republicans need to be proactive in dealing with an expected push next year to add LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) as a protected class.
Beumer noted that his vote against Senate Bill 1 was in response to the opinions he heard from his District 33 constituents. Holdman, the bill’s author, was disappointed in some of the compromises that had to be made in order to pass the bill, especially that the state board remained at 11 members instead of being trimmed to nine.
In looking toward next year, Holdman put his focus on the need to fix the formula for assessed value of farm ground. It is currently a four-year rolling average, which resulted in a 17-percent tax increase this year despite the fact that commodity prices have been dropping.
After working on school funding as a key issue this year, Beumer is hopeful he and his fellow legislators can turn their attention to infrastructure in 2016. He said it is especially important for Indiana to improve the job it is doing in terms of taking care of roads and bridges.
“We had our education session this year,” he added. “I’m hoping there’s an initiative next year to, even though it’s not a budget year, to find ways to get more funding into our infrastructure …”