The second week of the Indiana General Assembly came with a flurry of committee meetings and new bill lists. More than 1,100 bills have been filed between the House and Senate. While new bills continue to be released, the deadline to assign bills to committee was Friday (1/20), so we anticipate no new bills to review moving forward.
Several House and Senate majority priority bills had initial hearings in committee last week. Ways and Means Committee held several hearings on the Governor’s proposed budget and will likely introduce the House amendment to the Governor’s budget sometime in the next two weeks.
Several bills have been submitted that align with the 1si Advocacy Agenda. The focus of our Call to Action in 2023 includes talent attraction and retention which has four main concerns: Quality of Place, Housing Growth, Availability of Childcare, and Enhance Healthy Lifestyles.
Bills that 1si is taking a position:
Supporting:
- HB 1005: Establishes the residential housing infrastructure assistance program (program) and residential housing infrastructure assistance revolving fund (fund).
Opposing:
- HB 1278: Prohibits the Indiana economic development corporation, any other public authority, or any party negotiating on behalf of any of those entities (like 1si) from entering into a non-disclosure agreement designed to keep the details of the negotiation private until approval by a public body is warranted.
Monitoring:
- HB 1502: Establishes the workforce development board grant program and the workforce development board grant program fund.
- HB 1599: Provides for creation of a tourism improvement district within a county, city, or town to fund tourism-based amenities. Specifies the contents of the tourism improvement district plan that must be filed with a petition to establish a district.
- HB 1085: Provides that 20% of the incremental property taxes of any new tax increment financing area shall be allocated to school corporations that maintain an attendance area that includes all or part of the allocation area.
- SB 37: Requires local units of government that impose a food and beverage tax to annually report information concerning distributions and expenditures of amounts received from the food and beverage tax.
- SB 411: Authorizes local units of government to adopt a commercial property-assessed clean energy program (PACE program) as a financing mechanism to allow commercial property owners to obtain financing for energy-efficient improvements.
As the session moves forward, the 1si Advocacy Leadership Team will review those bills that are being heard and weighing in with positions that are consistent with the 1si’s 2023 Advocacy Agenda.
We will keep you updated on our actions related to the 2023 Indiana Legislative Session, but for more information on our Advocacy Agenda, please visit www.1si.org/advocacy.