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Local members of the Indiana House and Senate are still fuming over last week's "remote vote" to keep the all-day kindergarten bill alive.
They expressed their frustration during the Kosciusko County Farm Bureau's legislator meeting Saturday morning.
At first, House Speaker Patrick Bauer allowed a vote by Democratic Rep. Thomas Kromkowski, who was at home in South Bend recovering from heart surgery, which allowed apparent passage of the all-day kindergarten bill. But the state constitution says representatives must vote in person in chambers.
Bauer later discounted Kromkowski's vote and the proposal failed.
Rep. Bill Ruppel (R-North Manchester) said Saturday that HJR 5 would have eliminated the common school fund that schools borrow upon for construction projects and renamed it the early learning trust fund.
That fund, Ruppel said, may be moved and used at the governor's discretion, not necessarily to fund all-day kindergarten.
Ruppel was joined by Rep. Dave Wolkins (R-Winona Lake) and state senators Kent Adams (R-Warsaw), Gary Dillon (R-Columbia City) and Tom Weatherwax (R-Logansport).
"The Indiana State Police officers were very upset," Adams, a former ISP officer, said. "The state police are supposed to be apolitical. No one allows a vote to be taken via video."
"There were government students in the gallery," Ruppel said, adding he went up to talk with them about the incident. "Anyone against the constitution shouldn't be holding office.
"We already have too many things mandated for the schools and not funded, the Prime Time project, remediation, in-service training for teachers.
"All-day kindergarten is a smokescreen so one isn't thinking about property taxes."
Wolkins said last week he was as discouraged as he's ever been at the capitol.
"The first three weeks we did nothing," he said, adding the House voted on hundreds of bills last Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
"The gambling interests are running the show."
Wolkins and Ruppel voted for the pull tabs bills because the Clean Water legislation was tacked onto it.
The state's National Guard commander recently resigned, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles commissioner quit and a file containing evidence about an adopted boy found murdered has gone missing.
Weatherwax said when Standard and Poors lowered Indiana's issuer credit rating from "AA+" to "AA," it means "huge sums of money" because the state is seen as a higher investment risk.
"We have to make huge cuts," Weatherwax said. "S264 establishes another property tax replacement commission, but how do we replace money to run local governments? We can't continue to be the sugar daddy with a 4 to 5 percent increase in taxes each year.
"The 1 percent sales tax increase went 'back home' to lower property taxes.
"We can't undo what we've done for business and we should be talking about taxes and not other things.
"Do you realize it costs $300 million to $360 million to run the state each day?"
Dillon said the tax restructuring just shifted things around, and one option is to broaden the sales and property taxes to include nonprofit organizations to pay for fire and police protection. Also, the income tax could be raised 1 percent for property tax relief.
"When you lower one tax you raise another."
The legislators talked about the proposal to raise their pay, the incomes paid to judges and prosecutors.
"The judges are behind it," Wolkins said. "They make $90,000 to $95,000 and the attorneys before them are making more money. We're losing a lot of good judges because of the pay. They can make three times that amount in private practice."
Ruppel said the state ranks 49th in judges' pay. Representatives also are some of the lowest paid in the region.
A commission has been established to study the pay rates.
"The commission may say judges are the only ones who get a raise," Wolkins said.
Adams said he did not sponsor a red light camera bill this year because it has been approved by the Senate three years in a row. The House bill failed to be heard this year.
