HB 1001 – State Budget
Authored by Rep. Tim Brown (R-Crawfordsville)
The budget bill appropriates money for the operation of the state, K-12 and higher education, the delivery of Medicaid and other services, plus various other distributions and purposes.
Chamber position: Support in part
The latest: The Senate Appropriations Committee began hearings of the House-formed budget bill this week. The opening round was devoted to the funding requests of Indiana’s institutions of higher education. After the House author, Ways and Means Chair Tim Brown, presented his caucus’s version of the budget, the Appropriation Committee turned to Teresa Lubbers, Indiana Commissioner of Higher Education, to outline the commission’s fiscal picture and preface presentations from each of the universities.
The presidents of Ball State, Ivy Tech, Purdue, Indiana State, Vincennes and the University of Southern Indiana were all present to outline their school’s programs and financial needs; Indiana University was represented by its CFO. Their presentations are available online under additional documents.
It is traditional for each university to come before those who control their purse strings to sing the praises of their respective schools and make their funding pitches. This hearing is just kicking things off, as the Appropriations Committee will proceed to hold more hearings of other funding requests from additional entities and receive input on all aspects of the state budget from members of the public and lobbying community in the coming weeks.
Indiana Chamber action/commentary: The Chamber will be meeting with Appropriations Committee Chair Ryan Mishler (R-Bremen) in the near future and will be presenting its own set of priorities as they relate to the budget. The intent is to have them reflected in the Senate budget that the committee ultimately passes before the budget is placed on the table for conference committee discussions next month (before the session ends in April). We engage in the education funding discussions and will be weighing in on broadband expansion, regional development efforts and promoting a more substantial cigarette tax.
This year the budget will include a healthy number of supplemental programs that will be funded from federal stimulus money, and we will also be offering our thoughts on how those monies going toward one-time expenditures and short-term programs might best be utilized.
Resource: Bill Waltz at (317) 264-6887 or email: bwaltz@indianachamber.com
