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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAn economic development initiative focused on Indiana’s struggling metropolitan areas will come before the Senate with less than a quarter of the funding proposed by Gov. Mike Pence.
House lawmakers slashed funding for the Regional Cities initiative from $86 million over the next two fiscal years to $20 million. Proponents hope the Senate will restore funding to the level proposed by Pence, but it remains to be seen whether lawmakers can do that without pulling from existing funds.
“Our hope is that the Legislature would recognize that this is a down payment on the state’s future by investing in the communities that generate a disproportionate share of state revenues,” Indy Chamber lobbyist Mark Fisher said.
House Bill 1403, which sets up the Regional Cities initiative under the Indiana Economic Development Corp., is assigned to the Senate Appropriations Committee and is not yet scheduled for hearing. The thrust of the program is to funnel a sizeable chunk of capital to two yet-to-be-determined metro areas that would use the money to kick-start a regional makeover.
At $20 million over the biennium, the Regional Cities initiative won’t have much impact, Fisher said. But the funding Pence proposed was controversial because it would have drawn on existing funds, including a trust fund that cleans up leaking underground gas-storage tanks.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said the Senate will have to consider whether to pay for the plan from the general fund, rather than any of the special funds proposed by the governor.
“We’ll probably have to face it straight-up, as a budget item,” he said. He has not studied the issue closely enough to say how much might be appropriated. “I do know it’s one of [Pence's] priorities, so we’ll take a good hard look at it.”
HB 1403’s Senate sponsor, Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, couldn't be reached for comment.
The Underground Storage Tank Excess Liability Trust Fund would have provided $40 million of the $86 million proposed by the governor. That alarmed a group of gas-station owners, whose attorney called it a “raid” on the state’s most successful environmental clean-up program.
The fund has helped clean up 4,300 leaking storage-tank sites in Indiana, but another 3,500 haven’t yet been inspected, said Chris Braun, general counsel for the Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association.
“It’s far too early to declare victory that we have excess cash in the [trust fund],” Braun said.
The governor’s office would have drawn Regional Cities money from several other sources, including $20 million from the Department of Insurance Fund; $5.7 million from the Financial Institutions Fund; $183,000 from the Enterprise Zone Fund and $20 million from the Indiana 21st Century Research and Technology Fund.
The only Regional Cities funding source that stayed in the budget bill, now before the Senate Appropriations Committee, was the $20 million from the Indiana 21st Century Research and Technology Fund, also known as the "21 Fund." Administered by the IEDC through Elevate Ventures Inc., the 21 Fund helps grow early-stage technology companies.
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