State Officials Address Wetlands & Education Bills
February 27, 2021 at 12:43 a.m.
By David [email protected]
The session was hosted by the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce and featured State Sens. Ryan Mishler and Blake Doriot and Reps. Craig Snow, Curt Nisly and Stacey Donato.
Doriot brought up the wetlands bill when he said, “Some of the things that I’ve worked on – and I know of one that’s causing quite a stir – so I’m going to poke the sleeping bear right away, it’s the wetlands, 389, and I really want to get this straight because my duck hunting buddies and all that are angry with me, and we are not touching the wetlands like you would see around Lake Wawasee and the lakes and along streams. Those are off-limits federally.”
In 2017, he said the state passed a law that says “no more restrictive enforcement than the federal law” and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management is “doing that with isolated wetlands.”
“What’s happening, if you have a farmer and have an acre that’s had a broken tile and it’s turned into a wetland, you go to fix that tile, IDEM comes in there saying that, ‘Well, you’ve done this and now you must mitigate up to 4 acres for 1 acre and up to a cost of $40,000 an acre.’ So some of these people are looking at $160,000 for an isolated wetland and IDEM isn’t even supposed to be enforcing those,” Doriot said. “So, I want to get it straight: I’m not draining my duck marshes because I need a place to duck hunt, and I’m trying to be a good steward of the law, but we’ve got to have some common sense so people can work their fields, those small developments and that. But we’re not touching any of the connecting wetlands.”
Mishler later added, “My own mom lives on Wawasee. She called Sen. Doriot and I up and said, ‘Hey, you guys, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘Mom, I’m not going to kill your lake.’”
He said people should keep in mind the words “jurisdictional wetlands.”
“That’s what the wetlands around Wawasee, Tippy, Webster – the lakes are jurisdictional, which means they are governed by the federal government, so that won’t change,” Mishler said. “... So, it doesn’t kill the wetlands around the lakes at all.”
If anyone wants to talk further on the wetland bill, Doriot provided his phone number of 574-536-3031. He asked that no one call him on Sunday.
Mishler then brought up the first education issue.
He said he feels that Senate Bill 2 “just encourages schools to keep kids at home on the virtual program. So, then moving forward, I’ve got this education reform bill and we have to remediate kids because of the failure of virtual schools. So, I’m like, ‘Why are we encouraging it when on the tail end we have to do remediation because kids are failing because of the virtual program?’”
Mishler said what also miffed him about SB 2 was that kids go to a private school and pay were in the classroom and those kids that go to public school weren’t.
“With the exception of – I give Warsaw a lot of credit. They might have been one of the largest schools that stayed in. A couple of smaller schools in our area had in-person instruction, but for the most part, most of the public schools did not. They did a hybrid or full virtual,” he said.
As he looked at the schools that went full-time in-person, Mishler said they’re the schools having fewer problems than those that went to hybrid learning.
“Because I think the kids were in a much better environment because of all of the safety protocols in school compared to they were getting sick at home. If you look at the sports programs, the school, they weren’t delaying the sports programs or the school was moving. Now we’re kind of seeing those kids that actually went full-time have fewer problems and a better education,” Mishler said, noting he voted against SB 2 because it puts $150 million aside to help students failing because of virtual learning.
More information on SB 2 can be found online at legiscan.com/IN/bill/SB0002/2021.
Chamber President and CEO Rob Parker read several questions regarding education. One person asked, “With the potential increases in taxpayer-funded vouchers to the private charter and homeschools, what pieces of financial accountability do you foresee needing to be mandated to these schools or parents? And since public schools and students are required to give and pass ILEARN and IREAD, why aren’t private or homeschooled students held to that same standard? And if public tax money is used for all with the voucher option, why don’t we hold them all to the same standard and make them all required to do the test as well?”
Mishler said that any private school that accepts vouchers has to do ILEARN. “If you take the money, you’ve got to take the test,” he said. Charters are public schools so they have to take it anyway. “But any private school that does not accept vouchers does not have to.”
He said explained House Bill 1005, which establishes the Indiana education scholarship account program.
“The House originally came out with a $150 million voucher proposal. So, currently, if you make $75,000 for a family of four, you qualify for a voucher. This raises it to $150,000 in a family of four,” Mishler said.
The concern there, he continued, is the ADM (average daily membership), the number of students at a school. “Currently, if a student goes from public to private, the state saves money.” The concern is if the state opens that voucher program up.
Using his son’s school – a private school with 600 kids at the high school, with perhaps 200 of them on vouchers – as an example, Mishler said, “If we change this, about 400 kids that are already in that school, that are already paying full tuition, would be eligible for a voucher. So what happens is now they can on the ADM count, so the state has to account for them. So that increases the cost to the tuition support by $150 million.”
He said he waited to see how the Indiana House was going to balance that because there’s only $100 million in the structural surplus. The House first tried to do a cigarette tax increase but that wasn’t enough to pay for everything.
“So, they kept these pathways in ... there’s certain ways, like if you started at a public school, then you can go to a private school – but there’s certain pathways you have to meet to get a voucher to go to a private school. That lowered the dollar amount to $30 million. So there’s the voucher piece, basically,” Mishler said.
Then there’s the Education Savings Accounts (ESA). Mishler said those are something new that the state hasn’t talked about before.
“So what that would do is, if your child is special education, foster child or – here’s the key, has an IEP (Individualized Education Plan). IEPs are huge. Any kid with ADD, which about 85% of kids are diagnosed with ADD, has an IEP. So then you open it up pretty wide. So any of those students, the parent can take the tuition support, put it into an account, and basically go take that money. They can go on to special online areas, buy supplies, which I can’t buy supplies with my kid’s tuition support. I don’t understand why we would do that. You could go get services elsewhere with that money,” he said.
He noted there’s concerns about accountability and transparency.
“This would be the first time that the money would go to the actual family,” he said. It would go into a fund controlled by the parents instead of from the state to the school. He said there will be a big discussion on the ESAs.
Local school boards – including Warsaw and Whitko – have come out against HB 1005.
More information on the bill can be found online at https://legiscan.com/IN/bill/HB1005/2021.
The session was hosted by the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce and featured State Sens. Ryan Mishler and Blake Doriot and Reps. Craig Snow, Curt Nisly and Stacey Donato.
Doriot brought up the wetlands bill when he said, “Some of the things that I’ve worked on – and I know of one that’s causing quite a stir – so I’m going to poke the sleeping bear right away, it’s the wetlands, 389, and I really want to get this straight because my duck hunting buddies and all that are angry with me, and we are not touching the wetlands like you would see around Lake Wawasee and the lakes and along streams. Those are off-limits federally.”
In 2017, he said the state passed a law that says “no more restrictive enforcement than the federal law” and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management is “doing that with isolated wetlands.”
“What’s happening, if you have a farmer and have an acre that’s had a broken tile and it’s turned into a wetland, you go to fix that tile, IDEM comes in there saying that, ‘Well, you’ve done this and now you must mitigate up to 4 acres for 1 acre and up to a cost of $40,000 an acre.’ So some of these people are looking at $160,000 for an isolated wetland and IDEM isn’t even supposed to be enforcing those,” Doriot said. “So, I want to get it straight: I’m not draining my duck marshes because I need a place to duck hunt, and I’m trying to be a good steward of the law, but we’ve got to have some common sense so people can work their fields, those small developments and that. But we’re not touching any of the connecting wetlands.”
Mishler later added, “My own mom lives on Wawasee. She called Sen. Doriot and I up and said, ‘Hey, you guys, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘Mom, I’m not going to kill your lake.’”
He said people should keep in mind the words “jurisdictional wetlands.”
“That’s what the wetlands around Wawasee, Tippy, Webster – the lakes are jurisdictional, which means they are governed by the federal government, so that won’t change,” Mishler said. “... So, it doesn’t kill the wetlands around the lakes at all.”
If anyone wants to talk further on the wetland bill, Doriot provided his phone number of 574-536-3031. He asked that no one call him on Sunday.
Mishler then brought up the first education issue.
He said he feels that Senate Bill 2 “just encourages schools to keep kids at home on the virtual program. So, then moving forward, I’ve got this education reform bill and we have to remediate kids because of the failure of virtual schools. So, I’m like, ‘Why are we encouraging it when on the tail end we have to do remediation because kids are failing because of the virtual program?’”
Mishler said what also miffed him about SB 2 was that kids go to a private school and pay were in the classroom and those kids that go to public school weren’t.
“With the exception of – I give Warsaw a lot of credit. They might have been one of the largest schools that stayed in. A couple of smaller schools in our area had in-person instruction, but for the most part, most of the public schools did not. They did a hybrid or full virtual,” he said.
As he looked at the schools that went full-time in-person, Mishler said they’re the schools having fewer problems than those that went to hybrid learning.
“Because I think the kids were in a much better environment because of all of the safety protocols in school compared to they were getting sick at home. If you look at the sports programs, the school, they weren’t delaying the sports programs or the school was moving. Now we’re kind of seeing those kids that actually went full-time have fewer problems and a better education,” Mishler said, noting he voted against SB 2 because it puts $150 million aside to help students failing because of virtual learning.
More information on SB 2 can be found online at legiscan.com/IN/bill/SB0002/2021.
Chamber President and CEO Rob Parker read several questions regarding education. One person asked, “With the potential increases in taxpayer-funded vouchers to the private charter and homeschools, what pieces of financial accountability do you foresee needing to be mandated to these schools or parents? And since public schools and students are required to give and pass ILEARN and IREAD, why aren’t private or homeschooled students held to that same standard? And if public tax money is used for all with the voucher option, why don’t we hold them all to the same standard and make them all required to do the test as well?”
Mishler said that any private school that accepts vouchers has to do ILEARN. “If you take the money, you’ve got to take the test,” he said. Charters are public schools so they have to take it anyway. “But any private school that does not accept vouchers does not have to.”
He said explained House Bill 1005, which establishes the Indiana education scholarship account program.
“The House originally came out with a $150 million voucher proposal. So, currently, if you make $75,000 for a family of four, you qualify for a voucher. This raises it to $150,000 in a family of four,” Mishler said.
The concern there, he continued, is the ADM (average daily membership), the number of students at a school. “Currently, if a student goes from public to private, the state saves money.” The concern is if the state opens that voucher program up.
Using his son’s school – a private school with 600 kids at the high school, with perhaps 200 of them on vouchers – as an example, Mishler said, “If we change this, about 400 kids that are already in that school, that are already paying full tuition, would be eligible for a voucher. So what happens is now they can on the ADM count, so the state has to account for them. So that increases the cost to the tuition support by $150 million.”
He said he waited to see how the Indiana House was going to balance that because there’s only $100 million in the structural surplus. The House first tried to do a cigarette tax increase but that wasn’t enough to pay for everything.
“So, they kept these pathways in ... there’s certain ways, like if you started at a public school, then you can go to a private school – but there’s certain pathways you have to meet to get a voucher to go to a private school. That lowered the dollar amount to $30 million. So there’s the voucher piece, basically,” Mishler said.
Then there’s the Education Savings Accounts (ESA). Mishler said those are something new that the state hasn’t talked about before.
“So what that would do is, if your child is special education, foster child or – here’s the key, has an IEP (Individualized Education Plan). IEPs are huge. Any kid with ADD, which about 85% of kids are diagnosed with ADD, has an IEP. So then you open it up pretty wide. So any of those students, the parent can take the tuition support, put it into an account, and basically go take that money. They can go on to special online areas, buy supplies, which I can’t buy supplies with my kid’s tuition support. I don’t understand why we would do that. You could go get services elsewhere with that money,” he said.
He noted there’s concerns about accountability and transparency.
“This would be the first time that the money would go to the actual family,” he said. It would go into a fund controlled by the parents instead of from the state to the school. He said there will be a big discussion on the ESAs.
Local school boards – including Warsaw and Whitko – have come out against HB 1005.
More information on the bill can be found online at https://legiscan.com/IN/bill/HB1005/2021.
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