INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Chamber of Commerce is about to unveil an ambitious, long-term legislative agenda that ranges from reducing the number of obese Hoosiers to cutting the number of local government units by half.
Detailed in what the pro-business advocacy organization calls its 15-year plan for economic prosperity is a long list of strategic goals that go beyond its traditional tax and regulatory issues.
Included in the document dubbed “Indiana Vision 2025” are calls for cleaner water, more cultural diversity and a narrowing of the educational achievement gap for the state’s poor and minority students.
Chamber president Kevin Brinegar said the plan was developed by a task force launched in 2010 that decided to “go big” with its assignment.
“Their mission was to identify the key economic drivers that will create prosperity for all Hoosiers,” Brinegar said.
The plan acknowledges that goal is in peril. It contains a snapshot of Indiana’s economic performance over the last decade. Among the figures it cites:
Per capita income that’s dropped from 32nd to 41st in the nation.
A high school graduation rate that moved down from 31st to 33rd in the nation.
A rate of access to broadband Internet that plunged from 33rd to 45th in the nation.
Given that picture, members of the task force — which included education, community and business leaders from around the state — opted to venture into some areas that are politically charged, Brinegar said.
The plan, scheduled to be rolled out around the state in early 2012, calls for support of what may be the most contentious issue facing the Indiana General Assembly in the next session: the so-called right-to-work legislation that would ban employers from entering into labor agreements that require workers to pay union dues or fees.
But it also calls for a statewide smoking ban and the repeal of the state’s “smokers’ rights” law that forbids employers from making smokers pay higher out-of-pocket costs for their health insurance.
Brinegar said Indiana’s high smoking and obesity rates have a direct impact on attracting new jobs.
“We’ve got one of the highest health care costs in the country,” Brinegar said. “That’s a negative for us and it’s a direct byproduct of a work force that is less healthy than those in other states.”
The plan also calls for an aggressive push to keep the sweeping education reforms that passed in the last session in place for the long-term. One way to do that, it says, is to give Indiana’s governor the power to appoint the superintendent of public instruction, a position that’s now elected.
It also supports sweeping reform of local government — including eliminating more than 1,500 units of government, from townships to library districts — which has met with little enthusiasm in past legislative sessions.
The plan identifies four key “economic drivers” where it says Indiana must excel to compete in the global economy: a talented and educated work force, an attractive business climate, superior infrastructure and a dynamic and creative culture.
That last driver includes the goal of creating a culture “that further values diversity and civility” to retain and keep talented workers. It’s a not-so-veiled rebuke at some recent legislation, including a bill that targeted illegal immigrants, and a resolution that set into a motion a possible constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Brinegar said there was a “robust” conversation among task members about including it in the plan. “In the end,” he said, “they saw it as an issue of creating a welcoming environment to attract and retain the kind of talent we need to compete in the 21st century.”
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