A Texas man who took hostages in a northwestern Indiana realty office and held police at bay for several hours suffered three gunshot wounds before dying, likely from two different weapons, a coroner said Saturday. Roy L.INDIANAPOLIS – Gov. Mitch Daniels on Thursday revealed a wide-ranging legislative agenda highlighted by unemployment benefit cuts, charter school expansion, possible use of school vouchers and a promise of fair redistricting of lawmaker districts.
“I want to present to the citizens of our state the outlines of a very ambitious agenda for more positive change in Indiana,” he said. “It’s a big set of assignments, and we are really excited about the chance for Indiana to surge forward on all of these fronts.”
The list of priorities was released as a set of 14 general ideas, with specifics to be developed in coming weeks.
Daniels intends to push hard during his final two years in office, taking advantage of a large House Republican majority achieved in Tuesday’s election.
One mandate he said legislators must accomplish is to pass a measure that brings unemployment insurance premiums – the taxes paid by businesses – into balance with unemployment benefits given to Hoosiers.
The state has been running a deficit in the unemployment insurance trust fund for several years. This means the fund consistently has paid out more in benefits than it receives in revenue. As a result, the state fund ran out of money, and Indiana owes the federal government almost $2 billion.
Daniels said benefit cuts are on the table as are increases in premiums paid by businesses.
“We can’t continue with some of the lowest premiums and the highest benefits in America,” Daniels said. “And that’s why the system was leaking money when we were at full employment, and it’s leaked a lot of money since we have high unemployment. So, it’s going to have to change at both ends.”
House Democratic leader Patrick Bauer said unemployed Hoosiers are struggling to make it on the money they receive, which ranges from $50 a week to $390 a week. And he estimated it would take a 50 percent cut in benefits to bring the system in balance.
“It’s going to be disastrous,” Bauer said.
Another of the governor’s key areas of focus will be education – including giving more quality options to parents and students.
“It’s not right that only the more fortunate and wealthy citizens have full range of choice,” Daniels said.
The mechanisms to achieve this could involve vouchers, expansion of charter schools and other options. Nothing is off the table, Daniels said.
He also wants to evaluate teachers based on student learning so the best teachers are paid more.
This likely means an end to tenure and a focus on improving individual student scores.
Nate Schnellenberger, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association, said many of the education ideas are worthy of discussion, but more details are needed.
“I know they want to go down the road on certain things, but I don’t know what the vehicle is they want to travel in,” he said. “They are going to have to do something besides have those catchy sayings. They need to quit saying ‘pay the best teachers more’ and show us the actual proposals.”
On a final issue, Daniels encouraged lawmakers to pass a fair redistricting plan for legislative maps.
New census data will be delivered to lawmakers in early 2011, and that data will be used by Republicans to draw all 150 House and Senate districts, as well as new congressional boundaries. The new maps will be used for the next 10 years.
Redistricting often is a partisan process designed to protect incumbents or carve out new territory based in part on voter registrations or voting patterns. Gerrymandering has resulted in many oddly shaped districts, some splitting rural counties and small cities.
“Indiana must have a fair redistricting based on geographic and community of interest lines – not politics. And I’ll only sign one that meets that test,” Daniels said.
Soon-to-be House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, has long advocated changes in this area.
But he conceded Tuesday that it will be an even bigger challenge now that his caucus has at least 59 members to draw fair maps that don’t endanger Republicans.
The “sweet spot was about 55,” Bosma joked. “It will be a challenge, but our commitment is to draw fair maps. They won’t look like the ridiculous maps that we have now.”
