Legislative Preview: Likely topics of 2012 – From State Rep. Mark Messmer

This week I thought I would give an overview of some of the high profile legislation that the General Assembly will likely be dealing with during the upcoming session starting on January 4. This is a short session that will end on March 14. Next week, I will share my thoughts on the individual bills that I am working on.

I would expect the legislature to once again act on the smoking ban bill. There is increased interest in getting a smoking ban through the legislature quickly. We have passed a smoking ban bill out of the House for the last five years, only to see the bills die in the Senate. I have supported the bills that have been passed out of the House the last three years, and I will again if it contains most of the exemptions we have included in the other smoking ban bills.

The local government reform legislation we passed out of the House last session should come back again this session. It included the conflict of interest bill that I authored last session prohibiting a person from serving on an elected board that approves their own salary and benefits, and another bill addressing nepotism would limit the ability of hiring family members by elected officials.

There will likely be a bill that will require the schools to perform student counts multiple times per year rather than just at the end of September. Additionally, with the increase in revenue the state is seeing this year, there will be some interest in increasing the amount of school funding for the year as well.

A couple of tax provisions will be discussed. One will deal with the phase out of the state inheritance tax, and the other would be to lower the financial institutions tax to the same rate as the rest of the corporate income taxes. Last session we set a schedule of lowering the corporate rate from 8.5 percent to 6.5 percent over a four-year period.

Finally, congratulations to the schools in District 63 that were named Four Star Schools by the Indiana Department of Education this week. There were five in our communities out of 162 statewide that received this honor including: Northeast Dubois High School, Ireland Elementary, Jasper High School, Otwell Elementary and Cedar Crest Intermediate. This is a great honor and accomplishment. Congratulations to the faculty, staff and students at these schools.

As you can see, many important issues will be addressed this session that affect all of us in our daily lives. It will no doubt be an exciting session!