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The Indiana Legislative Council on Wednesday approved the nearly two-dozen topics that lawmakers will examine in interim study committees through the end of October.
A whopping 400 topics were suggested by lawmakers and agencies but were narrowed down to 22 “through a bipartisan process” involving legislative leadership, according to Legislative Services Agency Executive Director George Angelone. The resolution was approved in a voice vote.
Selected subjects range from the value of public lands to a look at medical debt. The panels tasked with studying them can play key roles in teeing up legislation for the next session — but don’t always.
“It just allows people to gather and have more, both formal and informal, conversations about sometimes complex topics,” House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, told reporters.
House and Senate heads will assign members to each committee in the coming weeks. The two chambers trade off who chairs the groups, and it’s the Senate’s turn this year.
What made the cut
Leaders from both parties enthused over one panel tasked with studying the value of Indiana’s recreational public lands, like state parks. It must consider the direct and indirect impacts of that land on local economies, including tourism, employment, health and more.
“It’s more than just a space for families to go for camping, for recreation. It’s also a huge economic boom for our state,” said Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington.
Her counterpart, Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, said quantifying the land’s value won’t lead to selling it off: “That’s not what I have in my mind.”
“We all know how valuable they are and how important they are, but the study committee will kind of flesh that out a little bit,” said Bray, R-Martinsville.
Another panel will consider medical debt: protecting debtors’ homes from liens or sales, collections or property lien limits, salary garnishment limits, monthly payment caps, and more.
Huston wrote one of the letters proposing that it be among the topics studied.
“We just have heard from a lot of different folks of what a financial burden that becomes to people, and how hard is to overcome it, and there’s very little pathway to resolve (it),” he said. “… We’ll take a look at it and see what options are available to us.”
Huston emphasized low-income Hoosiers or those who’ve needed particularly expensive procedures.
Yoder was also supportive, telling reporters, “Too many families are one medical crisis away from losing a home, losing their well-being, and we need to study that.”
Lawmakers will also review the “efficiency and effectiveness” of various state-created bodies with a focus on the work they’ve produced and how they’re funded.
It echoes an effort begun last year — although only one of the nine examined at the time had any current members show up to defend them.
“I couldn’t even begin to tell you the number of boards, commissions and study committees out there, and some of them might not be as productive as you might want them to be,” Bray said.
The panel might consider consolidating some, or getting rid of others that “haven’t been doing substantive work” recently, he added. “… It’s probably an exercise that should happen more often, is to take a look and see what’s really a productive effort and what’s not.”
Other topics include a review of child fatalities, water safety education, public school administrator salaries, long-term care insurance costs, postpartum checkups and artificial intelligence in state government, among others.
Several statutory committees and task forces — like for health care costs and Medicaid oversight — weren’t assigned any topics.
“We had a lot of legislation in those areas (over) this last session, and sometimes you’ve got to let some of those issues bake a little while, to see, before you have a new issue that you really have to grapple with,” Bray explained.
Other action
Separately, the council authorized Angelone to short five national organizations on Indiana’s membership dues.
They are the Council of State Governments, Education Commission of the States, National Conference of Insurance Legislators, National Conference of State Legislatures and National Council of Legislators from Gaming States.
“The general concept is that we would pay 5% less than the invoiced amount,” Angelone said, recalling the 5% budget cuts forced on state agencies following a grim revenue forecast.
The council took similar action in 2011, he continued, and paid the deficit amount in a later year. But the resolution approved Wednesday doesn’t have a built-in payback provision.
And, the 2011 move was negotiated to maintain Indiana’s membership, Bray said. Although this year’s “haircut” wasn’t, he expected the state to retain its place in those organizations.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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