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House GOP Aims To Boost Education Funding, Public Safety

House Republicans say an honestly-balanced budget, more public education funding and a greater commitment to public safety are their top priorities for the upcoming legislative session.

Other key issues they plan to address are the governor's ability to ask state agencies to return parts of their budget, and the House of Representatives' ethics rules.

What's Likely To Get Increased Funding

One part of the increased funding for public education could come in the form of a tax credit for public school teachers to help cover out-of-pocket classroom expenses.

Speaker Brian Bosma says his caucus also wants to ensure community corrections programs are given the extra funding they need to deal with greater demand created by criminal code reform.

House Republicans want incentives for solving the state's infant mortality crisis, but Bosma says people shouldn't expect a huge increase in expenditures.

"Because the very first item on the board to my right is that we will live within our means and also maintain stable and healthy reserves," he says.

But House Minority Leader Scott Pelath says Republicans can make all sorts of what he calls "grandiose pronouncements" about priorities when it will all come down to maintaining a $2 billion surplus.

"The outcomes don't matter as much as the talking point of saying that number and then using it as some evidence that the state is improving or that the people are prospering," he says.

Pelath says Republicans would not have to include so many items on their priority list if they had not shut down House Democrats' previous attempts to deal with issues such as domestic violence and infant mortality.

Budget Take-Backs

The power of the governor to cut state funding or require agencies to send money back to the general fund could also be reigned in when the General Assembly meets next session.

For years state agencies have been required to revert some of their budgets to the General Fund – essentially, cut a certain percentage of what the legislature appropriates.

In the last fiscal year, Governor Mike Pence ordered a greater reversion from state agencies than originally planned and asked colleges and universities to cut their budgets in response to struggling revenues. Pence is asking for those same cuts again this year.

Lawmakers expressed frustration after essentially negotiating a deal with higher ed institutions to hold off on tuition increases in exchange for an increase in state dollars.

"We have had some discussions about the appropriateness of reversions and blanket reversions or should they be targeted?" Bosma says, explaining that next session will include talks about the issue.

Governor Pence says the power of reversions is a vital tool.

"The authority that this office has in that regard I think is widely understood, across the political spectrum, as an important part of why Indiana in the last decade has been able to put our fiscal house in order and keep our fiscal house in order even during very uncertain economic times," Pence says.

Modifying Ethics Rules

Reforming the General Assembly's ethics rules will be another key part of the Republican Party's agenda in the upcoming legislative session.

The legislature's ethics rules have come under increased scrutiny this year after Rep. Eric Turner, R-Cicero, allegedly lobbied against a nursing home industry bill, an effort which netted him and his family millions of dollars.

Yet the House Ethics Committee found Turner hadn't violated any rules. Bosma says strengthening financial disclosure policies is necessary to help boost public trust.

"I think when someone has a substantial and personal material interest in something, they should not be involved – publicly or privately – in the policy making arena on that," Bosma says.

Bosma says he will work with leaders from all four legislative caucuses – Republicans and Democrats – to help craft that reform effort.

The House Minority Leader says he welcomes that partnership.

"Our system of ethics is a living, breathing thing and when we have to make prudent changes, then certainly we need to make those together. And what we need is an institution that people have faith in, that functions effectively, is transparent and that people want to serve in," Scott Pelath says.

The legislative session begins in January.

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