GREENFIELD — Hate crimes, school funding and child welfare highlighted the menu of legislation at the Greenfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s “Eggs and Issues” legislative breakfast this week.
Dozens of people gathered to hear from state Sen. Mike Crider; state Rep. Bob Cherry and Speaker of the House Brian Bosma at NineStar Connect in Greenfield. The three GOP lawmakers, who represent parts of Hancock County in the Indiana General Assembly, spoke about bills moving through the legislature. The breakfast fell at the halfway point in the legislative session.
Cherry and Bosma said House Republicans focused much of the first half of the session creating a balanced $34.6 billion two-year budget. The biennial budget, passed along party lines 65-33 last week, increased education funding by $611 million — a 2.1 percent increase in 2020 and 2.2 percent in 2021. About $60 million over those two years will be awarded to teacher evaluation grants, Bosma added.
The House also passed a bill recommending schools to use 85 percent of their funding for instruction, such as teacher salaries, Bosma said, and the remaining 15 percent for operations. He said lawmakers also OK’d bills that encourage younger teachers to stay in education through mentoring opportunities.
The “thorniest” issue in the legislature this year, Bosma said, is the proposed hate crimes bill. The GOP-dominated Senate passed a bill 39-10. Supporters of the idea, including many Democrats called it “watered down,” since the bill removed a list of protected characteristics, such as sexual orientation, gender identity and race.
The amendment stripping the characteristics immediately drew criticism from Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb as well as civil rights activists and businesses. Holcomb said Indiana’s status as one of five states without hate crimes legislation is hurting business recruitment efforts. The bill that passed the Senate adds the words “including bias” to current state code on factors a judge may consider in handing down a sentence. It’s unclear whether that will be acceptable to Holcomb and supporters of a bill that includes specific groups.
Bosma said the Senate bill doesn’t qualify as a hate crimes law, per se, but it allows judges to aggravate a sentence because of a perceived bias. He expects strong discussion on the topic as it’s now in the House, allowing that it will difficult to “thread the needle” to satisfy both sides in the debate.
Crider, who saw a few of his mental health-related bills pass the Senate on the final day of the first half of the session last week, said he’s focused on fighting for underserved people, especially children. Senate Bill 3, which passed the Senate unanimously, would establish an internet crimes fund for Indiana State Police training and equipment used in the investigation of offenses against children on the internet.
Indiana also has more children in its welfare system than many nearby states, Bosma said. The House voted to add $286 million per year to the Department of Child Services’ budget to assist the overworked agency. State leaders have been reviewing DCS’s procedures and adding more staff to handle cases.
The state session wraps up at the end of April.
