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SENATE APPROVES ANOTHER DELAY IN SPF IMPLEMENTATION  On Tuesday, the Indiana State Senate unanimously approved SB 319, the bill that will retain the 2011 soil productivity factors for the 2013 assessment of farmland and direct the Department of Local Government Finance, in cooperation with the Purdue College of Agriculture, to develop and submit to the General Assembly recommendations and justifications for any proposed changes in the methodology used to establish soil productivity adjustments to the base value of farmland. In presenting the bill, author Sen. Jean Leising (R-Oldenburg) explained that depending upon what county a farm is located in, the property tax savings as a result of the delay will vary from 15% to 45% and total about $57 million this year.

Farm Bureau tax specialist Katrina Hall worked with Sen. Leising and her co-authors, Sens. John Waterman (R-Sullivan) and Greg Walker (R-Columbus), as well as Appropriations Committee Chairman Luke Kenley (R-Noblesville) to accomplish relatively early Senate action on the bill.

All Farm Bureau members, especially those who will benefit from the reduced assessment of their farmland, are urged to contact their state senator and thank him or her for supporting SB 319. The only senators who did not vote for SB 319 were Jean Breaux (D-Indianapolis) and Mike Delph (R-Carmel), who were both excused from voting.

As the Senate was acting on SB 319, the House Ways & Means Committee decided to wait another week before voting on HB 1114 (Rep. Bob Cherry, R-Greenfield), the House bill that would require the use of the 2011 soil productivity factors for the 2013 assessment.

LOCAL ROAD FUNDING DISCUSSED AND DEBATED IN COMMITTEE  There seems to be a widespread acknowledgement among legislators that making additional revenue available to local units of government for road and street repair and maintenance is a high priority. There is not yet agreement among legislators as to the best way to accomplish that objective. This week several bills that would provide additional local road funds were heard in the Ways & Means Committee. In keeping with that committee’s usual procedures, the committee will wait at least a week before a vote is taken on any of these bills. Katrina Hall represented Farm Bureau at the committee hearing and supported all four of the road funding bills that were presented. These bills were:

• HB 1117 (Rep. Mike Karickhoff, R-Kokomo), which would allow a county income tax council to impose a motor vehicle excise surtax and a wheel tax. Currently only the county council can impose these taxes, the proceeds of which are used for local road maintenance. The county income tax council is a fiscal body created by the Indiana General Assembly in 1984 to decide local income tax issues. The income tax council consists of votes from each of the county’s elected fiscal bodies, which are apportioned according to their unit’s relative share of the county’s population. HB 1117 is the same as SB 389 (Sen. Phil Boots, R-Crawfordsville), which passed the Senate by a vote of 37-11 on Tuesday.

• HB 1126 (Rep. Tom Saunders, R-Lewisville), a bill that would remove the current requirement that half of the annual appropriation to the Indiana State Police be deducted from the motor vehicle highway account fund before any allocation is made to INDOT, counties, cities or towns. Removing the state police from the gas tax distribution has been a long-standing policy position of Farm Bureau.

• HB 1141 (Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso), which would require that half the sales tax collected on the sale of gasoline be allocated to INDOT (40%) and local units (60%). The distributions would be quarterly, with the first in October 2013.

• HB 1363 (Rep. Todd Huston, R-Fishers), which would prohibit the use of gasoline taxes, special fuel taxes, and motor carrier fuel taxes to pay for the operations of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. This bill would also eliminate all payments from the motor vehicle highway account to the state police.

FEDS WITHHOLD $40M OF HIGHWAY FUND  While the General Assembly was considering ways to raise money for local roads, the federal government has told the state that about $40 million of the federal money Indiana will receive this year must be used for programs to combat drunken driving rather than to repair roads and bridges. INDOT officials responded that they had previously been advised by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the state was in compliance and were hopeful that federal directive can be reversed.

SENATE PANEL AGREES TO EXEMPT FARM KIDS FROM DRIVING RESTRICTIONS  The Senate Committee on Homeland Security, Transportation & Veterans Affairs agreed to an amendment to SB 538 that removes some restrictions that would have otherwise restricted the ability of children under 16½ years of age to operate farm equipment. SB 538 is a comprehensive bill that addresses a number of motor vehicle issues. As introduced, the bill would have made it illegal for persons under 16½ to operate farm equipment. Farm Bureau’s Bob Kraft discussed the effect this language would have on family farms with Sen. Tom Wyss (R-Fort Wayne), who is the bill’s author and who also chairs the committee. Sen. Wyss graciously agreed to offer an amendment to allow children under 16½ to operate tractors or implements of agriculture that are designed to be used in off-road farming activities on public roads when the use of the public road is incidental to normal farming activities. The committee agreed with the amendment, and the bill was forwarded to the full Senate.

SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES BILL TO FACILITATE NATURAL GAS BUILD-OUT  On Thursday, the Senate Utilities Committee voted 8-2 to forward SB 560 to the full Senate. The bill’s author, Sen. Brandt Hershman (R-Buck Creek), explained this comprehensive and complicated piece of legislation that will, among other things, encourage the distribution of natural gas to portions of rural Indiana that are not currently served. Bob Kraft supported that part of the bill designed to encourage natural gas infrastructure, pointing out that modern farms use a substantial amount of energy and that less expensive natural gas will benefit the farmer’s bottom line. He also pointed out that the availability of natural gas would increase the attractiveness of rural communities to industrial operations as well as the economic development potential of those communities.

SENATE COMMITTEE OKs CHANGES IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION PROCESS  On Wednesday, the Senate Local Government Committee approved SB 343, a bill introduced by committee chair Randy Head (R-Logansport) that will bring the procedures for the consolidation of a municipality with the unincorporated portions of a county or with a township into line with Farm Bureau policy. Under the new procedures, voters in both the municipality and the unincorporated area must separately approve any proposed merger. The bill also includes safeguards to assure that the implications – including the fiscal ramifications to taxpayers within and outside the municipal boundary – of a vote to support a proposed merger are fully understood by the voters. Current law allows the entities proposing the consolidation to require the separate approval of both groups of citizens but does not require it. This bill, if enacted, will give rural residents a greater voice in determining whether they want to be incorporated into a city. Farm Bureau’s Katrina Hall testified in support of the bill as did representatives of the Vanderburgh County Farm Bureau, which successfully opposed a merger proposal in the 2012 election.

FARM BUREAU OPPOSES BILL TO ALLOW SINGLE COUNTY EXECUTIVE  In the Senate Local Government Committee, Katrina Hall testified in opposition to SB 475 (Sen. Travis Holdman, R-Markle), a bill that would allow county commissioners to propose to the voters that the three-member commission be replaced with a single county commissioner. No change would occur until the proposal was approved by the voters. Farm Bureau policy is opposed to replacing the current county commissioner structure with a single county executive. The committee did not vote on SB 475.

FARM BUREAU SUPPORTS PUBLISHING LEGAL NOTICES IN NEWSPAPERS  Another bill heard in the Senate Local Government Committee on Wednesday would have authorized public agencies and political subdivisions to publish legal notices on a website rather than in a newspaper. Because many Farm Bureau members live in areas of the state where broadband Internet service is not available, Katrina Hall registered Farm Bureau’s opposition to SB 458 (Sen. Jim Banks, R-Columbia City). No committee vote was taken on this bill.

LEGISLATION TO HELP FARM WINERIES AND CRAFT BREWERIES HEARD THIS WEEK  On Wednesday morning, the House Public Policy Committee took testimony on HB 1017 (Rep. Eric Koch, R-Bedford), a bill that would allow the state’s farm wineries to self-distribute up to 12,000 gallons of wine a year. Noting that farm wineries were an important segment of Indiana agriculture, Farm Bureau’s Bob Kraft supported this legislation in committee. The committee took no action on HB 1017 this week. It did approve HB 1293 (Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany), a bill that creates an artisan distillers license for Indiana and will allow farm wineries and craft breweries to produce distilled spirits.

Later in the day, the Senate Public Policy Committee approved a pair of bills that were introduced by Sen. Jim Banks (R-Columbia City). One of these bills, SB 100, would allow microbreweries to sell beer for carryout only at farmers markets.  The sale to any one customer would be limited to the equivalent of two cases of bottled beer and could not be made on Sunday. The other bill, SB 401, would allow microbreweries to participate in up to 45 trade shows or exhibitions a year with the approval of the alcohol and tobacco commission. Bob Kraft supported both of these bills in the Senate committee.

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION COMPROMISE BEING NEGOTIATED  It was reported this week that a bipartisan group of senators has reached an agreement on the principles of sweeping legislation to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws. It is reported that the deal will address border security, guest workers and employer verification, as well as a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S. With President Barack Obama also backing comprehensive immigration reform, the deal marks the start of what could be the most promising negotiations in years concerning overhauling the nation's inefficient patchwork of immigration laws. The principles were being endorsed by eight senators, including Democrats Charles Schumer, Dick Durbin and Robert Menendez and Republicans John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio.

Farm Bureau is pleased that the aforementioned senators understand that agriculture is a unique industry whose concerns need to be a priority during immigration reform discussions. The summary specifically indicates this legislation will address the unique labor concerns facing the agricultural industry. Farm Bureau is also pleased that the issue is finally being addressed at the federal level rather than by the individual states whose action over the past several years has created uncertainty over the availability of a seasonal work force.

ASTRONAUT TO TALK TO SENATE  At 1:50 on Monday afternoon, Astronaut Kevin Ford is scheduled to speak with the Indiana Senate from the International Space Station of which he is the commander. Astronaut Ford is the brother of the late Sen. David Ford (R-Hartford City). David Ford also served several years as an attorney on the Farm Bureau staff. If you are interested in watching this conversation from space, go to http://www.in.gov/legislative/, click the “Watch the General Assembly” button in the upper right hand corner then select the video feed from the Senate Chamber.

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