By Patrick Guinane, Times of Northwest Indiana
patrick.guinane@nwi.com
INDIANAPOLIS | State lawmakers will return to the Capitol to begin crafting a new state budget on June 11 -- four days earlier than expected.
"Let's get on with it," Gov. Mitch Daniels said Tuesday after announcing a special session start well ahead of the June 30 expiration of the current budget. "If it takes that long, that's OK. But maybe we can beat that."
MORE:View spending changes that Gov. Mitch Daniels proposes for the Indiana's next two-year state budget.
The Republican governor went before a committee of top legislators Tuesday to explain details of the spending plan he debuted in a televised speech the night before.
The nitty-gritty proved not so nice for poverty-stricken school districts, with one top Democrat suggesting the governor's education funding formula would decimate schools in Gary and Indianapolis.
But the budget plan would provide the full $14 million requested to complete Little Calumet River flood protection levees.
"As soon as I found it I went and thanked the governor," said Sen. Frank Mrvan, D-Hammond. "He was real happy. I was happy. I thought he was gonna kiss me there."
Meanwhile, the Gary Community School Corp. must prepare to turn the other cheek. Beset by falling enrollment, the district would see combined state and federal stimulus funding decline from $111 million this year to an estimated $99 million in 2011 under Daniels' budget.
"Education, unfortunately, is resource-driven," said House Ways and Means Chairman William Crawford, D-Indianapolis. "The fact they're writing off Indianapolis and Gary school systems is tragic."
While Democrats didn't raise hackles about the overall size of the two-year, $28.5 billion budget plan, they made clear that divvying up more than $6 billion a year in education funding will be a key battle.
The governor includes $400 million in federal stimulus money flowing directly to school districts when he says his budget would give schools an average increase of 2 percent in each of the next two years. Despite a per-student funding increase of $717, Gary's expected enrollment decline would result in an overall loss of $12 million a year.
In general, districts with steady or growing enrollment would fare better. Valparaiso Community Schools, for instance, would see its state support rise to $38.1 million in 2011 from $35.9 million this year, which reflects a per-student increase of $161.
State universities would face 4 percent operating budget cuts, but the governor wants to tap federal stimulus dollars to bankroll $275 million in campus repairs and renovations and $137 million for 10 new construction projects.
"Let's get busy right now," Daniels told lawmakers. "Let's pay for it in cash."
The emphasis on "shovel-ready" projects kept a $33 million replacement for Indiana University Northwest's flood-ruined Tamarack Hall off the governor's project list. Also absent is a $3.5 million annual subsidy to public broadcasting stations, including Lakeshore Public Television Channel 56.
Overall, the governor's plan portends a productive start to the special session, said Sen. Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville. The regular session ended April 29 with bipartisan bickering and a firm stance by the spend-conscious governor.
"I feel like you've gone more than half way to meet us," Kenley told Daniels.