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Citing the public’s outcry over significant tax bill increases, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said Tuesday that he will continue to fight for broader property-tax relief after a Senate fiscal committee scaled back his plan for ambitious tax cuts.
Braun said Senate Bill 1—the Senate’s top-priority property-tax relief bill—doesn’t do enough to provide widespread relief now that his proposal has been removed from the legislation.
“I’m going to be out there as an advocate again to get it in that right place,” he said. “So you haven’t seen the end of it.”
While Braun’s plan would have installed tax bill caps and expanded the homestead deduction, the Senate instead passed legislation on Feb. 17 that would slow property-tax growth and target relief to vulnerable demographics.
Those changes led Braun to threaten a veto of the bill—which the Legislature could overrule with a simple majority vote.
On Tuesday, he said he would veto the measure “as a last resort” but doesn’t expect he will need to. His administration is acting collaboratively to find a compromise on the bill, he said, and lawmakers are meeting with him frequently.
Though Braun has been bullish about delivering on his top campaign promise, he told reporters he won’t go overboard and risk damaging much-needed relationships with Legislature leadership.
The primary hurdle for expansive property tax relief is the ability of local governments to cut millions of dollars out of their budgets. Local leaders warned that Braun’s plan would result in significant cuts to critical services. They said the pared-down bill would still mean noticeable rollbacks to services residents expect.
Braun continues to say local bodies can handle the plan but will need to tweak their spending to grow at a pace taxpayers can pay for.
‘If they bought a lot of shiny objects, if they’re sitting on a lot of cash balances, do a little soul searching yourselves,” he said. “We’ll end up in, I think, a place that’s going to be a sweet happy medium.”
Last Thursday, both House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, and Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, R-Martinville, told reporters they want to avoid the possibility of a special session to handle the property tax issue.
“We want to get to the right place, and we all want to find property-tax relief for Hoosiers,” Huston said. “And I think we’ll get there.”
Bray said a veto would create challenges.
“We’re going to keep our head down and try to craft a policy that works for the state of Indiana,” he said.
SB 1 is awaiting House introduction and eventual consideration in the chamber’s Ways and Means Committee.
Besides his qualms with the property-tax bill, the governor voiced his support Tuesday for a number of progressing bills, including health care cost transparency, minimum teacher pay raises and additional prosecutor funding support.
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SB 1 is a joke. They need to do better.
IN GOP in a nutshell: complain about potholes while reducing the ability of municipalities to fill potholes.
maybe they should spend less on bike lanes that barely get used.