Indiana leaders offer glimpse into plans for compressed legislative session

Indiana’s top legislative leaders on Thursday sketched out a restrained agenda — including tweaks to a contentious property tax law — ahead of an unusually short Statehouse session that is also expected to feature movement on health care, child care and utilities.

The Indiana General Assembly is scheduled to reconvene Jan. 5 for a breakneck eight-week session.

Lawmakers can meet until mid-March during a non-budget year, but plan to adjourn early to offset the two weeks they spent this month on a failed partisan redistricting proposal.

“We’ve adjusted the calendar,” House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, said. “We will finish before the end of February … and people are going to have early March off to watch basketball.”

He and other key lawmakers spoke Thursday at the annual Dentons Legislative Conference, held at the Indiana Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis.

The compressed schedule will present “the No. 1 limiting factor this session,” said Sen. Mike Crider, R-Greenfield. Crider, a Senate committee chair, said the panels may only have time for one hearing each.

Bills that don’t get committee votes won’t advance further in the legislative process.

Crider appeared in place of the Senate’s absent GOP leader, President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray.

The Martinsville senator has faced heavy criticism from fellow Republicans over the maps’ defeat.

Bray “had a longstanding in-district commitment that was on his calendar before he was even invited to Denton’s, so he wasn’t able to participate this year,” spokeswoman Molly Swigart said.

House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne, encouraged lawmakers to be “very careful” crafting their bills amid the time pressures.

“I felt like Senate Enrolled Act 1 was done very quickly … and we’re seeing that there are problems with that,” he told reporters, referring to a behemoth local government finance law approved in April.
 

“I do think that if you rush through legislation, you end up making some harmful mistakes, and so we’ve got to be very careful about that,” GiaQuinta added.

Edits are expected on the local government finance law, which offers Hoosiers property tax relief while expanding income taxing potential. But schools, libraries and other units are still set to lose out on millions of dollars they would have otherwise collected.

Some communities “are just concerned about how they’re going to make that difference up,” said Sen. Travis Holdman, the Senate’s tax policy head. “We need some time to talk about that.”

“I’ve been a proponent of pushing some of these dates out a little further on the timeline, just to give us some more time to figure some things out,” added Holdman, R-Markle.

He and others are also “looking really hard” at the amounts that could be gained via local income tax.

Controlling costs

Social safety net scrutiny could continue, despite a rosier revenue forecast unveiled Thursday.

This year’s Senate Bill 1 — the number reserved for the majority caucus’ top priority — “will look at aligning Indiana statutes with what passed at the federal level,” Crider said, including changes to work requirements for Medicaid and the anti-hunger Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Indiana enrollment in Medicaid, the low-income health care program, has dropped by about 300,000 people throughout the year, totaling 1.7 million in November, according to the forecast.

That hasn’t halted spending worries.

“We have people in the program that need to be off … We couldn’t take folks off the program during the Covid years,” Holdman said. “I think we’ll get there. But at the current rate, it’s just not sustainable.”

Indiana already conducted a year-long “unwinding” process post-COVID.

Huston, the House’s GOP leader, predicted an otherwise “quieter” 2026 session for health care.

“We’ve done a lot. I think this session we probably need to let some stuff bake,” he said. “… Let’s see how it works and get some of the data back that we’ve requested.”
 

But the 2027 session “will be all about health care,” as the General Assembly grapples with federal changes that shift Medicaid costs onto states.

During a lunchtime fireside chat, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun reiterated that cutting health care costs for patients is his top priority, but didn’t offer specific policy proposals. He didn’t take reporter questions.

Legislation to support hard-hit child care providers and parents is also expected.

Rep. Dave Heine, R-Fort Wayne, discussed plans to use the education scholarship model on child care.

“What we’re going to do is establish a public-private partnership, and we’re going to use the same format, the same structure,” he said. People or groups would give money to a scholarship granting organization and specify that it be used to support those who can’t afford child care.

The state closed enrollment in the Child Care Development Fund voucher program a year ago and won’t reopen to other low-income children until at least the end of 2026. A waitlist is growing.

Providers say the waitlist has crushed enrollment — particularly in infant and toddler rooms, since would-be voucher-holders weren’t yet born when the waitlist was implemented — while lower state reimbursement rates don’t cover costs for kids who do have vouchers.
 

Low-income parents often can’t access vouchers, while full-price-payers are still seeing providers close.

“I think we have a child care crisis right now. I mean, I’ve seen these centers closing,” said GiaQuinta, the House’s Democratic leader.

He and Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, indicated their caucuses will also file child care affordability bills.

Widespread outcry over rising utility bills is expected to prompt action, too.

House Republicans will consider performance-based ratemaking, while their Democratic counterparts seek to eliminate the 7% sales tax on utility service.

In the Senate, Yoder’s caucus wants to bar utilities from charging ratepayers for lobbying, litigation and more, and ban summertime shutoffs to low-income customers.

Lawmakers throughout the conference expressed excitement about the Chicago Bears’ interest in northwest Indiana, but were noncommittal on the state’s role in luring the franchise.

Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.