Latest news with #MattLehman
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Slew of bills dealing with state contracts, health care, casinos and more head to Indiana governor
Rep. Matt Lehman, R-Berne, sits with his grandson on his lap before session April 23, 2025. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle) Among the bills sent to Gov. Mike Braun Wednesday was a Senate Republican priority measure to increase transparency — and scrutiny — around state government contracts. Sen. Scott Baldwin's Senate Enrolled Act 5 advanced for a final time from both the House and Senate with almost unanimous bipartisan support. Across both chambers, only Rep. Ryan Dvorak, D-South Bend, was opposed. Included in the final draft of the bill are new rules for contacts awarded by state agencies and offices — including a ban on non-public, no-bid deals — and steeper expectations for vendors paid with taxpayer dollars. It also mandates 'unfilled' government positions be eliminated, and requires state offices to more closely monitor and publicly report on spending, as well as in-flow and out-flow of federal funds. Last-minute conference committee negotiations carved out exemptions for agreements between the Indiana Department of Correction (DOC) and private employers. Baldwin noted that some 1,300 offenders are currently employed through 13 DOC 'joint ventures' with companies like Cummins, Goodwill, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indiana Pacers. 'These are very difficult to bid out. They're very specialized, and so we've excluded them for that sole purpose,' the senator said Wednesday morning. All other reporting requirements will still apply, though. Another exception was made for child support contracting between Indiana's Department of Child Services and local prosecutors. Certain health care entities will additionally be required to report ownership information to the state as part of a transparency effort to detangle potential conflicts of interest under House Enrolled Act 1666. It passed the House on a 78-13 vote, with opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. The proposal had an easier journey in the Senate, where it had unanimous support. Providers like hospitals, insurers, third party administrators and pharmacy benefit managers will need to detail ownership stakes to either the Indiana Department of Health or the Indiana Department of Insurance, depending on their services. The Secretary of State's Office will also be involved in collecting and reporting data. Senators urged their House counterparts to exclude owners with less than a 5% interest in the entity at the behest of small-time providers seeking anonymity — particularly dentists, who are no longer impacted by the bill. That language survived conference committee edits. But House authors disagreed with the Senate's additional confidentiality provisions, though bill does give overseeing agencies some discretion when it comes to public reporting. 'The Senate added so much confidentiality that it was no longer a transparency bill,' author Rep. Julie McGuire, R-Indianapolis, concluded. The proposal, along with Senate Enrolled Act 118, both head to the governor, who previously signaled his support for such transparency measures. The latter moved with minimal opposition and would compel certain hospitals and health care providers to provide detailed reporting on their participation in the 340B drug program, which pairs drug manufacturer discounts with hospitals caring for underserved populations. Some critics say large health systems unfairly profit, prompting additional scrutiny from the state. The initial bill was amended to exclude certain Health Resources and Services Administration grantees. 'When it came back from the House, there was a concern that it may have excluded some hospitals that we wanted to report,' said author Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso. 'The conference committee report simply clarifies that.' The Senate approved the measure unanimously but it had two opposing votes in the House. Legislation to study relocating a poor-performing casino — or adding a new casino — will soon cross Braun's desk, too. Senators on Wednesday concurred with House changes in a 37-11 vote. Senate Enrolled Act 43 would require the Indiana Gaming Commission to contract out for a study to assess the top two regions, revenue-wise, for a casino license. Author Sen. Andy Zay, R-Huntington, initially sought to relocate a failing casino operating near the Indiana-Kentucky border to the Fort Wayne area. When that effort failed, Zay overhauled an empty vehicle bill to create the study. 'Destabilizing' Indiana casino relocation study could also recommend new license During its trip through the House, the legislation was narrowed from three regions, but expanded by striking relocation-specific language. The study would only take place 'subject to available funding,' despite a new November deadline. As he introduced that amendment, Rep. Ethan Manning, R-Logansport, noted 'the biggest hole in the market is northeast Indiana.' He indicated another possibility is Indianapolis. Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, said Wednesday that he'd heard a location has been 'earmarked' for Fort Wayne. Zay rejected that. 'Nothing has been earmarked. And that's why we're doing the study, to determine where the best locations might be — independent of any influences,' Zay replied. Randolph also suggested a set-aside for South Bend, but Zay said the city is 'already under compact' with the Potawatomi tribe and its Four Winds Casino. Senate Enrolled Act 43's text mandates an 'impact assessment of a potential tribal casino in the region' and consideration of the 'impact of a potential tribal casino on revenues.' Another measure seeking Braun's signature, Senate Enrolled Act 146, will raise minimum public teacher pay to $45,000 and bump the minimum percentage of tuition support that schools must spend on teacher pay. The bill — part of the governor's priority agenda — passed out of the House a final time in a 90-1 vote, and 47-0 from the Senate. The average teacher salary in Indiana during the last school year was recorded at $60,557, according to the latest state teacher compensation report. The lowest teacher salary reported was $40,000 — the current state-mandated minimum. The highest was $110,000. Teacher pay is ultimately set by local school districts. The original Senate bill, authored by Sen. Linda Rogers, would have additionally provided 20 days of parental leave to teachers who have worked for a school district for at least six months. That provision was ultimately removed, however, due to budget constraints. 'It was for fiscal reasons, not for policy reasons,' said Rogers, R-Granger. 'It's something I'm sure that we all want to work towards, but it is something that in local school corporations, they can still do today as part of the bargaining process. … I just don't think this is the right time. There are a lot of reasons to do it. Unfortunately, dollars play into it, and I'm trying to be cognizant of the budgets of local school corporations.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Delta-8 regulatory qualms go unaddressed as Indiana House approves homelessness, DEI measures
From right: House Republican Floor Leader Matt Lehman and Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta count lawmakers to resolve "division" over changes to a "craft hemp flower products" bill on Monday, April 14, 2025. (Leslie Bonilla Muñiz/Indiana Capital Chronicle) On the cusp of key legislative deadlines, GOP-led regulations for a marijuana-like drug got more edits Monday — despite vocal opposition from fellow Indiana House Republicans. Legislation cracking down on homelessness and diversity initiatives, plus promoting high-speed internet access, also passed muster. They return to the Senate for consent to the House's changes, or to kick off negotiations. Products with legally low concentrations of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol have proliferated in Indiana, alongside those containing delta-8 THC and other isomers. Attempts to regulate the nascent industry, which is booming on shaky legal footing, have failed repeatedly. After third committee vote, delta-8 regulations head to House floor Senate Bill 478 has gotten further than its predecessors, but its journey hasn't been smooth. It has been revised at every opportunity possible: during two Senate committee hearings, on the Senate's floor, in each of a whopping three House committee hearings and, Monday, it was the subject of 17 wide-ranging amendments filed for discussion on the House floor. The measure sets out advertising, age-limit, licensing, packaging, testing and other requirements. It authorizes the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission to regulate. Provisions defining 'craft hemp flower products' and setting out high milligram limits have sparked opposition from Indiana's chief attorney and others, but weren't changed Monday. Instead, lawmakers took up just two of the amendments. One, removing a new tax that was only partially removed last week, was adopted easily. Rep. Jake Teshka, R-North Liberty, reminded his colleagues that new taxes must go in House bills. But the other, raising the cap on retail permits from 9,400 to 20,000 and allowing permits for convenience and drug stores, prompted blowback from Teshka's own caucus. House Speaker Todd Huston presided over a first, then a second voice vote, but both sides were just as loud. Representatives from both caucuses counted up supporters and opponents instead: it was accepted on a vote of 63-21. Other complaints weren't addressed. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita's office wrote that the legislation 'expands' a loophole for 'high-potency, intoxicating THC products under the guise of hemp,' in a letter to lawmakers. The missive — signed by Legislative Director Erin Tuttle — was included in a Monday morning alert from the American Family Association's Indiana chapter. A 2018 federal law defined legal hemp as containing 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight or less, but the letter observes lawmakers didn't apply that limit to other isomers. Only 'very high' caps of 100 milligrams per serving and 3,000 milligrams per package would apply. The legislation also allows THC potency to be measured by weight or volume — without limits on the product's size or mass — instead of by dry weight, Rokita's office continued. That means manufacturers can increase the milligrams by 'manipulating a product's volume.' 'By allowing these products to be sold, SB 478 effectively creates a parallel cannabis market in Indiana — one that operates entirely outside the state's marijuana laws at a time when marijuana remains illegal at both the state and federal levels,' the letter said. It urged lawmakers to instead consider any product containing more than 0.3% total THC by dry weight as banned marijuana. House Democrats also spent about an hour apiece attacking proposals they maintain criminalize homelessness and undo progress born out the Civil Rights Movement. Rep. Andrew Ireland, R-Indianapolis, said Senate Bill 197 is 'not about punishing people for being homeless.' 'We are never going to arrest or jail our way out of this problem,' said Ireland, the bill's sponsor in the House. He said the goal is to keep public spaces 'accessible and clean, while offering individuals every reasonable opportunity to access the services and the shelter they so desperately need.' The bill stipulates that 'a person may not camp, sleep, or use for long term shelter a public right-of-way or public land unless authorized for that use by the state or political subdivision, as appropriate.' Before they can make an arrest, officers must first determine 'if there are reasonable grounds for an emergency detention of the person.' If not, they must warn the person to leave within the 24- or 72-hour timeframe and offer transportation to a shelter or other form of 'temporary accommodations that provide respite and offer access to services and permanent housing options,' within five miles, as long as one exists and has a spot available. If the person refuses or there's no space, officers must call a local crisis intervention team, if there is one. Those who have not moved from a public right-of-way within 24 hours of a law enforcement officer's warning — or from public land within 72 hours — could be arrested and charged with a Class C misdemeanor. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 60 days in jail or a $500 fine. Legal proceedings would be referred to a problem-solving court. 'This is a bill grounded in principle,' Ireland told the House. 'It defends the rule of law, respects property rights, brings compassion to public safety, ensures fairness before fines, offers help before punishment, restores dignity through due process,' he added. Democrats remained staunchly opposed. 'This is not a compassionate bill. This is a cruelty bill,' Rep. Cherrish Pryor, D-Indianapolis, said in response to Ireland's assertion it represents a 'compassionate response.' 'If you don't abide by these rules, then you are going to be criminalized and penalized, and you might have a record simply because you don't have a place to lay your head,' Pryor said. Her colleagues also criticized the process. Rep. Maureen Bauer noted there was no testimony taken when a House committee co-opted a building safety bill to revive homelessness language from a dead bill. 'It wasn't vetted properly before the public,' said Bauer, D-South Bend. '… And it adds a new criminal penalty without ever going to (the) Courts and Criminal Code (Committee). If this was about connecting people to services, there would be no criminal penalty.' The House approved Senate Bill 197 in a 52-40 vote — a narrow margin featuring more than a dozen Republican defections. Legislation outlawing 'discrimination' in state education, employment and licensing 'based on a personal characteristic of the person' advanced in a 67-27 vote along party lines. Senate Bill 289 sponsor Rep. Chris Jeter said 'discriminatory' programs have 'crept their way into our government institutions' and created 'division.' 'This current version of this bill avoids legislating words because words can be manipulated; words can be weaponized,' Jeter, R-Fishers, said. 'This bill instead focuses on actions and behaviors.' It would also allow Rokita, the attorney general, to impose hefty civil penalties for violations: $50,000 for a first offense and $100,000 for a second or subsequent offense. But Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, said pro-diversity policies came into existence for a reason. In a lengthy speech from the House floor, he recalled how his mother faced racist attacks when forced into an attempt to integrate the former Emerson High School. She and the other Black honors students 'were called all kinds of names. They were pushed, they were spit on,' he said. The white teachers refused to let them enter their classrooms, locking the doors instead, while the white students walked out. Smith further described how he himself wasn't allowed to eat at certain restaurants, go to certain events or enter certain parts of the city in his younger years. As a 12-year-old, he got off at the wrong bus stop and 'got stoned by white children because I was not supposed to be in that neighborhood.' 'I never thought, when I was fighting (in) the Civil Rights Movement, that we would be reversing ourselves in this country,' Smith said. Senate Bill 289 could also create a 'serious problem' for the South Bend Community School Corp., per Rep. Ryan Dvorak, D-South Bend. He feared the district could be on the hook for damages. 'I believe (it's) the last school corporation in the state that's under a (federal) desegregation consent decree,' Dvorak said. It requires each school to mirror the district's overall Black student population. Jeter said that federal law reigns supreme in conflicts with state statutes. CONTACT US Other Democrats said the changes would harm veterans. Jeter said they wouldn't. The House also unanimously approved legislation offering a compromise between electricity and telecommunications providers in a bid to speed up the buildout of high-speed internet in rural and other underserved areas throughout Indiana. Senior Reporter Casey Smith contributed. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Indiana House OKs bill to increase scrutiny around state agency contracts
Rep. Matt Lehman, R-Berne (Monroe Bush for Indiana Capital Chronicle) 'Financial responsibility,' 'accountability' and 'transparency' for state government are at the heart of a Republican priority bill that inched closer to the governor's desk Tuesday. Sen. Scott Baldwin's Senate Bill 5 advanced from the House in a bipartisan 91-1 vote. Only Rep. Ryan Dvorak, D-South Bend, was opposed. Baked in the 21-page measure are new rules for contacts awarded by state agencies — including a ban on non-public, no-bid deals — and steeper expectations for vendors paid with taxpayer also mandates 'unfilled' government positions be eliminated, and requires state offices to more closely monitor and publicly report on spending, as well as in-flow and out-flow of federal funds. The measure will need a final signoff from the Senate before it can be sent to Gov. Mike Braun. 'I think this is a good first step (for lawmakers) to sit at the table, and for us to review those things that we're looking for when it comes to … fiscal responsibility, accountability and transparency,' said Rep. Matt Lehman, R-Berne, who sponsored the bill in the House. The bill is part of a Senate GOP priority bundle and has been coined a 'government efficiency' measure by the majority caucus. The House-passed plan is 'paired down' from the Senate's draft, Lehman said. Amendments on the chamber floor and in the Ways and Means Committee removed several earlier provisions in an effort to 'refine and streamline' the overall bill, and to avoid unnecessary requirements or 'inhibitions' on vendor negotiations. But at its core, the latest draft of the proposal is the same: increase accountability around state contracts. Except agreements 'solely entered into for licensed legal counsel' by executive branch offices, state agencies would no longer be allowed to a grant contracts without a request for proposals (RFP) that is posted on the department's website for at least 30 days prior to the deal. The Indiana Capital Chronicle revealed late last year, for example, that multiple no-bid contracts have been awarded by the Secretary of State's Office. Secretary of state spending includes millions in no-bid contracts Reporting showed roughly $4 million in IT-related contract dollars were awarded by the office without RFPs. The agreements do not appear on the Indiana Transparency Portal where such records are typically housed and made public, but a list of contracts has since been published on the secretary of state's website. Under the bill, however, all Indiana agencies, statewide offices, local governments, nonprofit organizations and state educational institutions would be required to input contracts into the state's transparency portal within 30 days of signature. Quarterly reports must additionally be turned in to the state budget committee detailing all of the agency's active contracts. State agencies would further be required to undergo budget panel review when making 'significant' contract amendments and before applying for new federal funds that require an Indiana match. To better track federal dollars awarded to the state, separate quarterly progress reports to budget regulators would be mandated, too. State contracts of $500,000 or more would have to include 'clearly defined scopes and success metrics' for vendors, along with penalties if expectations and deadlines are not met. Only contracts entered into by the Indiana Department of Transportation for work on highways, roads and bridges would be exempt. Another provision lets state agencies use artificial intelligence software to prepare required disclosure and projections that must be submitted to state budget regulators. I think this is a good first step (for lawmakers) to sit at the table, and for us to review those things that we're looking for when it comes to … fiscal responsibility, accountability and transparency. – Rep. Matt Lehman, R-Berne As far as office staffing, the bill requires that permanent, full-time positions that have been vacant for 90 days or more must be 'reauthorized' — meaning changes are made to the authority, duties or responsibilities in the job listing — or eliminated altogether. And although Baldwin, the bill author from Noblesville, earlier said his goal was to create a 'no-bid list' of companies that are temporarily disqualified from bidding on any more state contracts, such language has since been deleted. In committee discussions, Lehman maintained 'that there are already methodologies' in place for agencies to 'sanction or disqualify bad contractors.' 'So, we're not going to do something statutorily that they can currently do administratively,' he explained. The bill breezed through the House chamber without any floor discussion on Tuesday. But Dvorak — the only representative to ultimately vote unfavorably — expressed concerns the day prior about exemptions for legal counsel contracts. 'When it comes to legal services, that has been a growing percentage of many departments' budgets over the last several years — to the extent that there's often millions of dollars spent on outside legal contracts,' Dvorak said. 'I'm sure much of that is for very legitimate purposes. The fact remains, though, that we as legislators need to be aware of what those contracts are, why our state agencies are engaging outside counsel, what that counsel is actually doing, and how much they're charging. Taxpayers deserve that information, as well.' Dvorak said he was especially worried that executive offices could use the carveout to hide critical agreement details and taxpayer dollars spent on attorney contracts. 'I think there's a way you can exempt the information that might be confidential or covered as work product or attorney-client privilege in the transparency portal, while still having the guts of the contract be public. And that's the important part,' he continued. 'There's potential for insider dealings here — backdoor deals. I just think you're creating the opportunity for bad dealings to happen when you make these things exempt from public transparency.' Lehman clarified, though, that while specifics within counsel agreements 'would not necessarily be disclosed, the contract itself would be.' He held that only parts of the contract 'that go into the details of the agreement between the attorney and their clients' would be shielded. 'I think the concern here is, can I hide an amount in a contract? The answer is no. … That's not the intent of this. The intent of this is to make sure we're protecting client-council privileges,' Lehman said. 'Once that contract is adjudicated, I think the amount that you spent — because we have to pay the bill — the amount that was spent will be disclosed.' Democrats raised other questions about which provisions, if any, would apply to quasi-government agencies like the Commission for Higher Education, Indiana Economic Development Corp. and Indiana Finance Authority. Some would qualify, Lehman said, but because 'a lot' of quasi-agencies contracts require non-disclosure agreements or similar requirements in their contracts, 'I think those would be out because of that.' 'The issue we get into … with some of the quasi-governmentals is, where do you stop?' Lehman added. 'I think on this bill, overall, we're trying to go down a path for just (more) integrity and transparency, and we don't know what we don't know. And I think we're going to have the next 10 months to look at how this works, and I think we'll probably be back next year with some other things that may need to be addressed.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
