Health care, taxes top the agenda

Property tax reform, Medicaid costs and lowering healthcare costs.

Those items are at the top of the list of priorities for local legislators.

The 2025 Indiana General Assembly began its legislative session Jan. 8 and State Rep. J.D. Prescott (R-Union City) visited the Farm Bureau office in Winchester to provide the first legislative update of the year.

Additional updates are scheduled for 9 a.m. on the third Saturday of each month at the Farm Bureau office.

Both Prescott and State Sen. Scott Alexander (R-Muncie), who joined him for the update, noted that the priorities this session are enacting meaningful property tax reform; containing Medicaid costs and preventing fraud; lowering health care costs, responsibly managing water resources; and ensuring fiscal integrity and contract accountability. 

“Property taxes have been an ongoing battle since 2004,” said Alexander. “The current system of assessing property taxes and distributing bills is cumbersome and costly. For years we’ve been putting a BandAid on it. We’re now working towards a long-term solution to the issue.”

The House and Senate are looking into the possibility of eliminating property taxes.

Such a change would also eliminate the need for county assessors.

House Bill 1229 proposes eliminating new assessments as of Dec. 31, 2025, and collecting of property taxes as of Dec. 31, 2026. It would also prohibit the creation of new levies or referenda, and create a fund to pay off existing referenda at the current rates. 

In order to compensate for the property tax revenue lost for schools and local governments, the bill proposes extending sales taxes to transactions for services with the exception of health and mental health services (including insurance premiums) and charitable services that are tax exempt. The state comptroller would be responsible for distributing the revenue from the taxes to the appropriate funds. About 45% would go to schools, with 20% going to city governments and another 20% going to county governments based upon their population and amount of roadways. The remainder would go to township governments based on a five-year average of their needs.

“This model actually works out much better than we expected when you look at the projections,” said Prescott, who represents the southern two-thirds of Jay County as well as all of Randolph and Blackford counties and part of Delaware and Henry counties. “We are still very early in the session. Even if this isn’t the solution, we have started a meaningful discussion on the issue.”

Prescott and Alexander also noted that newly elected Gov. Mike Braun has been open to discussion on a number of issues.

“A more common-sense and back-to-our-roots approach to things seems to be taking place,” said Prescott.

Prescott has also introduced bills addressing transparency of school board elections, the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, illegal immigration and restrictions of advertisements of sports gaming.

Some of the issues brought up by those in attendance at Saturday’s session included underage vaping, money received by the Union School Corporation for online learning, and what would become of local fire services should the township level of government be eliminated.