Tagged: Indiana

Some municipal leaders watched Monday’s opening of the 2013 Indiana General Assembly session with a wary eye – wondering how taxation rules will affect local government and individual Hoosiers alike. 

The new leader of the House Ways and Means Committee Monday didn’t wholly endorse Governor Mike Pence’s plan to lower income taxes Monday.

When asked about the biggest plank in the platform which led Mike Pence to be elected governor – an across-the-board 10% income tax cut – Crawfordsville Representative Tim Brown wavered.

House and Senate leaders say they’re looking forward to a less contentious legislative session than the past two years as the General Assembly convenes Monday.

The last two sessions saw sweeping education reforms, Right to Work, abortion bills and immigration measures that created significant conflict between Republicans and Democrats in the legislature. 

Now, the GOP holds a supermajority in both houses. 

A new proposal from Attorney General Greg Zoeller and a GOP state senator would help Indiana schools put more police officers in their buildings.

School resource officers are already present in somewhere between a quarter and a third of Hoosier schools. 

Governor Mitch Daniels’ eight years in office is being remembered as a time of big changes and sweeping reform that’s left the state markedly different than it was.  Both supporters and opponents say Daniels was decisive and left no doubt as to who was in charge.  But whether changes made under the Daniels administration were positive depends a lot on who you talk to.

A state panel has voted to make it easier for non-education majors who earn Bachelor’s degrees to get teaching jobs.  That’s one part of a broad package of changes to Indiana’s rules for teacher licensing the State Board of Education approved Wednesday. But opponents fear the new standards sets the bar too low.

The State Board’s final 9-2 vote ends months of debate on the proposal known as “REPA II.”  State education officials say the new guidelines give schools more flexibility in the teacher hiring process.