The plan to skill up Indiana’s adult workforce could help prepare the state to fill an estimated 1 million jobs by 2025, most of which will be openings created by the impending retirements of baby boomers.
The $7,500 annual scholarship will cover about one-third of costs at a public college in Indiana beginning in the 2017-2018 academic year. The median cost in a public college in Indiana is $21,000 per year.
Democrats say it’s not enough, particularly in its failure to expand state-funded preschool to more counties.
Preschool advocates want the Indiana Legislature to spend $50 million a year to expand the state’s pilot program. So far, lawmakers seem cool to that idea.
Sen. Randy Head of Logansport said he will file a bill to “stop the monopoly” that was created by legislation passed in 2015 and amended in 2016, which essentially put one private security firm in charge of deciding which firms could manufacture the “juice” used in e-cigarettes sold in Indiana.
Gov.-elect Eric Holcomb, who announced his legislative agenda Thursday, has roughly the same idea as Gov. Mike Pence when it comes to investing in early-stage Indiana companies, but wants to pay for the plan through a different fund.
The proposal calls to raise three taxes and implement new user fees. House Speaker Brian Bosma said he expects the plan to cost most Hoosiers about $4 per month.
The Senate will gavel in for this year's session at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. The House will gavel in Wednesday at the same time.
The fact that two just-retired Indiana legislators are both already legally working for lobbying groups is leading some to question whether the state’s ethics laws are strict enough.
Gun rights advocates view the upcoming legislative session as their best bet to get rid of an Indiana law that requires a license to carry handguns.
Legislation to put a casino in one, specific location would be tough to pass. Lawmakers from Gary have tried for years to move one of its riverboat casinos inland and a previous proposal to move part of Rising Sun’s gambling operations to Indianapolis found a skeptical response.
Borst served 36 years in the Senate representing southern Marion County and northern Johnson County. For more than three decades, he was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the panel through which the budget and all tax legislation had to pass.
An increase in state gas taxes, tolling and a vehicle fee are among many possibilities suggested by a task force to pay for road improvements expected to cost as much as $1.2 billion annually.
The long-term forecast was sunnier, with revenue projected to increase 2.9 percent in 2018 and 3.9 percent in 2019.
Organizers of the Indiana Tech & Innovation Council say a number of factors led to its creation, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that Gov. Mike Pence signed into law in 2015.
Legislative leaders have sounded alarm bells over state revenue figures, saying lawmakers will need to take a cautious approach to investing in new programs such as expanding state-funded preschool and raising teacher pay.
Are the state’s workforce development programs a muddled, bureaucratic mess in need of reform? A top Indiana Republican thinks so.
Recent legislation has had the effect of dramatically reducing the number of players in Indiana’s vaping and e-cigarette industry and creating a monopoly for a Lafayette security firm.
At Tuesday’s Organization Day, Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma called for lawmakers to move past a "rough" campaign season and refocus on the priorities of state government when the Legislature convenes in early January.
House Speaker Brian Bosma said Monday at the Indiana Chamber’s annual legislative preview event that he wanted funding for Indiana’s roads and bridges that would last for “a generation”—and the question now is how the Legislature will go about paying for it.
