BizVoice July/August 2017

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16 BizVoice/Indiana Chamber – July/August 2017
LEGISLATIVE
ACCOUNTING
Action, not distraction, marked the 2017 session.
With the election in the rearview mirror, heavy lifting
was able to occur on key public policies – some of
which were years in the making.
Sure, several items weren’t addressed to their fullest, or at all,
but even in a good year that’s the nature of the General Assembly.
To replay the most memorable moments and assess where
lawmakers should go from here are:
• Kevin Brinegar, Indiana Chamber of Commerce president and
CEO, at
• Christina Hale, former state representative from Dist. 87
(D-Indianapolis), at
• Brandon Smith, Indiana Statehouse reporter for Indiana Public
Broadcasting and host of Indiana Week in Review, at
• Randy Truitt, former state representative from Dist. 26 (R-West
Lafayette), at
Infrastructure infusion
“I think maybe the one surprise was how relatively easy it went,”
Smith says, referencing the $1.2 billion long-term road funding plan
for the state.
“Really, at the end, (House Bill 1002) centered around whether
to shift the sales tax on gasoline entirely to pay for roads (from much
of it going to the state’s general fund). And I suppose it was a little
surprising that the House did get that total shift that they wanted, just
over time. It won’t finish until 2025. I wasn’t sure that the Senate was
ever going to go along with that entirely,” he maintains.
“We’d already seen basically this package go through the House
last session. But in the Senate, there was also pretty much agreement
about the tax increase, for the most part. It was ‘We know we need to
do this. We spent the year studying it in 2016. We have to do this. It’s
important. Hoosiers will go along with it if we show we’re actually
using it for roads.’ So for the most part, as a tax-raising, fee-creating,
billion-dollar spending bill goes, it was pretty easy to get through!”
That’s because it was completely necessary, asserts Truitt, who
along with Hale enjoyed their first session in years as interested bystanders.
“The dollar amount was just astronomical, but you drive on any
road anywhere in our state and it was a no-brainer that it was
something that we needed to do.”
Truitt also emphasizes that infrastructure offers a first impression
to potential businesses – and Indiana’s needed to be a more positive one.
Adds Hale, “You drive from Ohio through Indiana to Illinois, and
you feel it with every bump and scratch and pothole that you drive
over. So, people did buy that this was something that we could not
continue to defer maintenance for any longer.”
Brinegar stresses it’s about more than the condition of roads; it’s
also the congestion.
“The volume of traffic on some of our interstates and highways is
excessive to the point that it’s dangerous. Hardly a day goes by that
you don’t hear about wrecks on I-70 and I-65 in particular, even I-69,
and similarly on the highways and interstates up north, because there
are too many trucks and cars and too little space.”
It’s one thing that the Legislature opted not to do that left
Brinegar scratching his head.
“There was no replacement revenue to the general fund (after the
gas tax shift), which is going to make budgeting considerably more
difficult, not in this biennium, because they postponed it until afterwards,
but in the future bienniums to come.”
Tolling times ahead?
While the Legislature certainly provided a variety of financial resources,
they won’t generate enough money to meet future needs without tolling.
The group agreed that’s going to be a much harder sell to the
ROUNDTABLE
By Rebecca Patrick Home Runs, a Hiccup and Holdovers