While lawmakers and their constituents continue to debate the wisdom of raising taxes on businesses to finance unemployment benefits, little attention has been paid to plans to cut an additional $300 million in benefits.

Business will pay $315 million more in unemployment taxes over the first year of the two-year budget and $365 million the second. Opponents of the legislation, which Gov. Mitch Daniels signed Wednesday, complain that businesses are bearing the entire burden while worker benefits were not cut. Though it is true that there is no across-the-board cut in benefits in the new law, lawmakers talk euphemistically about finding $300 million in savings and efficiencies over the next two years.

What they really mean is that some workers who have previously qualified for unemployment benefits won’t in the future. In some ways, that is good – but the Daniels administration and legislative leaders need to be upfront with Hoosiers about exactly how the system will be changed to enable those cuts.

As examples, lawmakers say that people fired for bad attendance, showing up for work intoxicated or committing crimes at work will no longer receive unemployment benefits. While that seems like a no-brainer, these were possible holes in the existing law – Republican Senate leaders say they cost $20 million a year.

In addition, some administrative law judges who rule on denial of unemployment claims by employers have a reputation for erring on the side of the unemployed worker. Many employers have stories of workers fired for just cause who were nonetheless able to receive unemployment.

Some key language in the new law that could affect how the savings will be found:

The Workforce Development department “regularly shall monitor the hearings and decisions of its administrative law judges, review board members and other individuals who adjudicate claims to ensure that the hearings and decisions strictly comply with the law and the rules.”

More uniformity is needed by the administrative law judges, and the Daniels administration should say how it plans to achieve it. New guidelines for the judges may well be in order – and should be shared with the public.

A hint of how the administration will address this issue came in a news release Thursday by four Republican senators – including Senate leader David Long and Dennis Kruse, who authored the unemployment bill:

“New training and review of administrative law judges will allow Indiana to discard the deck previously stacked against employers wanting to fight errant claims.”

A new compliance center beginning in January will match information provided from a newly unemployed worker seeking assistance and the employer.

“If the information provided by the individual making the claim does not match the information from the separating employer, the department may not pay the individual benefits and shall refer the individual’s claim to the department’s unemployment claims compliance center for investigation,” the new law reads.

This will catch some errors, but it also has the potential to create a bureaucratic logjam similar to problems incurred with the changes in welfare eligibility under the Daniels administration.

Workers receiving unemployment benefits will have to apply for at least one job every week. Such a requirement is reasonable and could wean some workers off the rolls much earlier, either because they find jobs or simply stop applying.

With luck, the changes will honestly and fairly result in $300 million in savings, taking away benefits only from people who do not deserve them. But if fewer savings are found, officials will either have to go back to the drawing board with a new financing plan or find ways not to pay some workers who justifiably qualify.

Theoretically, the efforts to cut costs are commended and long overdue. The Daniels administration needs to be transparent about how it makes those cuts.