Senate axes 13th check bid in favor of long-term plan

A years-long disagreement between Statehouse Republicans over how best to fund pension benefit bonuses came to a head on Thursday when an Indiana Senate committee stripped a House bill providing 13th checks and instead inserted a Senate bill introducing a future hybrid approach.

Senators also approved legislation prioritizing “intellectual diversity” in higher education institutions–over academic freedom fears–alongside controversial election security and cosmetology bills. But they encountered a stumbling block on a prison proposal.

Indiana’s lawmakers have traditionally offered public retirees a 13th check or a cost-of-living adjustment to supplement pension benefits that lag inflation. The ad hoc bonuses have become a sticking point between the House, which favors them, and the Senate, which has desired a long-term solution.

Last year, lawmakers approved no bonus, angering many public retirees.

“We have to fix this so we’re not having these discussions every year,” said Sen. Ryan Mishler, who chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.

This session, the House put forth legislation giving public retirees a 13th check this year. The Senate, meanwhile, proposed Senate Bill 275, establishing a long-term, hybrid approach in 2025 – but it never got a hearing in the House, killing it.

But when the Appropriations panel added House Bill 1004 to its agenda just before Senate deadlines, it wasn’t for a compromise. Mishler offered an amendment emptying the bill and replacing it with his chamber’s version.

Mishler said he doesn’t believe the General Assembly can do both in tandem.

“We have to build the fund up,” he said. “If you do a 13th check, you’re going to prolong the permanent fix. That’s the trade-off.”

A fund already exists to pay for such additional benefits. But Mishler told reporters public employers would face higher surcharge rates to finance both the short-term and long-term approaches at the same time.

“They wouldn’t be able to afford that,” he said.

Several groups representing public retirees said they continued to support the long-term fix, but were disappointed in the lack of a short-term stopgap.

“What are we going to do in the meantime for retired educators?” asked Laura Penman, executive director of the Indiana Retired Teachers Association.

“The budget is not an issue,” said Jessica Love, executive director of the Indiana Public Employees Association. “… Retirees are struggling, and you have the ability to rectify that in a small way – this year.”

The Indiana Public Retirement System confirmed by email that lawmakers could do both “if all actuarial assumptions are met” but warned that it hasn’t examined the risks Indiana would face if finances failed to meet those assumptions.

Moving forward with both approaches would increase INPRS unfunded liabilities by $779 million, spokesman Dimitri Kyser wrote. That would also decrease the funded statuses for the 1996 Teachers Retirement Fund and the Public Employees Retirement Fund by about 3% and 2%, respectively.

Mishler was firmly against adding an ad hoc 13th check this year, but conceded, “Anything is possible.”

House Speaker Todd Huston told reporters Thursday that he believed lawmakers could do both bills, and that he was “optimistic” retirees could see extra help this year.

The legislation is expected to go to conference committee. Lawmakers from the House and Senate will negotiate to finalize a version on which both chambers can agree.

Senate sends conservative-friendly education bill to governor

After weeks of contentious debate in both chambers, senators sent to the governor a bill that GOP lawmakers contend will push speech in college classrooms toward “intellectual diversity.”

Sen. Spencer Deery, R-West Lafayette, who authored Senate Bill 202, said it adds protections to state law to ensure professors can’t be retaliated against “for criticizing administrators for the content of your research or for your outside political views.” The measure got the final green light in a 33-12 vote, largely along party lines.

“Getting this bill to this point is a win for academic freedom, for free expression and intellectual diversity on college campuses. And it’s a victory for those of us who believe that universities should challenge students by fostering … intellectually diverse communities,” Deery said. “Some Indiana public universities are already thriving on those grounds. This measure will empower them to improve with minimal disruption or inconvenience to how they already operate.”

Deery and other Republican lawmakers contend that conservative students and faculty members are increasingly ostracized at progressively liberal college and university settings—or at least perceive such shunning.

The bill will require institutional boards of trustees’ existing diversity committees to consider “intellectual diversity” alongside cultural diversity in employment policies and faculty complaints. It will additionally require the committees to make recommendations promoting recruitment and retention of “underrepresented” students rather than the “minority students” specified in current law.

Boards of trustees will further be required to prevent a faculty member from getting tenure or a promotion if the board thinks the member is “unlikely to foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression and intellectual diversity” and unlikely to offer students scholarly works from a range of “political or ideological frameworks.” Boards could also dock members considered likely to bring up personal political views unrelated to their specific field or class.

Democrats, however, said they were still concerned the legislation would hamper the state’s ability to attract professors.

“It stifles speech and (the) ability for professors to speak their mind and challenge ideas in the classroom,” Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, said.

Elections bill moves forward

Four Republicans crossed party lines to vote against an election security bill with Democrats but the coalition wasn’t enough to sink the bill, which passed on a 31-13 vote.

Sen. Mike Gaskill, R-Pendleton, described House Bill 1264 as a measure that “strengthens the requirement for proof of U.S. citizenship, identification and residency” for voter registration applications.

Indianapolis Democrat Sen. J.D. Ford disagreed with that characterization, saying it would make it more difficult for Hoosiers to vote in addition to flagging voters “for potential cancellation (based on) possibly unreliable commercial data.”

“To me, this bill is security theater at its best, making it more difficult for eligible voters to participate in elections and (for) registration officials to perform their work,” Ford said.

He argued unhoused people and college students would face hurdles when they tried to register to vote. Indiana, Ford noted, ranked second-to-last for voter participation in the nation.

Democrats additionally denounced language that would allow state election officials to pay for commercially available data — such as Experian’s TrueTrace — and compare that with voter lists.

Gaskill defended the legislation.

“I think this is a good, common sense bill that adds some protections, as I said before, that the people who vote in our elections are going to be citizens. And we’re going to have a little stronger reliability that they live where they’re actually registered,” he said.

The bill now moves to the governor’s desk.

Cosmetology bill makes the cut

A bill to establish a cosmetology apprenticeship program faced bipartisan opposition, with ten ‘no’ votes from Republicans and eight Democrats. One Democrat crossed to vote with Republicans, pushing the bill out of the chamber on a 31-18 vote.

House Bill 1135 similarly split testimony in committee, with dozens of hairdressers, beauticians and barbers convinced it would either widen the talent pipeline or degrade workforce quality.

“Currently the only way to obtain a cosmetology license is to attend a cosmetology school, which will always continue to train most students … (this) opens up opportunities for a hybrid approach,” said Sen. Linda Rogers, the bill’s Senate sponsor. “Regardless of whether you have attended a beauty school or work the required number of hours as an apprentice, everyone must still pass the same State Board written exam.”

She noted that 22 other states currently have such apprenticeships available. In a committee chaired by Rogers, senators opted to strike compact language to avoid a fiscal, meaning that the bill will need to be approved by the House before it can become law.

“This legislation does not affect any of the great cosmetologists that are working throughout Indiana today and that all of us rely on to look our best,” Rogers concluded.

Sen. Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg, noted that career centers across the state offered free cosmetology courses and had concerns about mentors improperly training mentees.

“I just think this is not a proven thing. And you know I’m all about apprenticeships,” Leising said.

Deery argued that a paid apprenticeship would be more affordable than a beauty school, potentially saving students thousands of dollars in student debt.

“I just ask you to think about how do we get ahead of student debt, and this bill is one of those ways that we can start to do that,” Deery said.

What’s next for failed vote on penal bill

Senators failed to come to a consensus on Senate Bill 23 following House amendments, which some worried were too broad. The vote on the bill was 20-25, meaning it didn’t get enough votes to either defeat or pass it.

But several senators expressed concerns that the House, by broadening definitions beyond light fixtures and fire suppression systems, had included too much. Author Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, took the bill off concurrence after the failed vote.

“We’ll get it fixed!” she told reporters.

Becker can dissent to the House’s changes and send the bill to a conference committee for further consideration. Or, she can call it down again for another attempt at concurrence.

Senators also approved Senate Bill 132 for final passage, sending it to the governor. The wide-ranging bill touches on licensing for foreign-educated nurses and insurance payments for dentists.