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Legislative Agenda

The Indy Chamber understands that today's professionals are busy focusing on the day-to-day responsibilities of their business operations and may find it difficult to be active in public policy debates that will determine the future business climate.

Each year, we develop our Legislative Agenda based upon our Business Advocacy Councils and Committees. Our member-developed policies are created after engaging discussion and debate, with input from leading experts and our members.

Need to know what’s going on at the Statehouse or City-County Council? Our Business Advocacy team provides updates to important bills, issues and policies in the Indy Chamber’s weekly e-newsletter and other communications.

2013 LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

The Future is Now

The Indy Chamber continues to serve as a voice of progress and improvement in the region, uniting business and community to improve the quality of life for residents. We are committed to advocating on behalf of our members and our community so that together we can make Indianapolis the best place to live and do business. 

The following agenda outlines the issues that matter most to our membership in the upcoming legislative session – issues for which we will be strongly advocating in an effort to build a stronger Indianapolis. The time to act is NOW.

Economic Growth

State & Local Economic Development:


  • Local Incentives: Secure and maintain flexibility of local incentives for economic and community development efforts to encourage new growth and redevelopment of existing resources

  • State Incentives: Maintain Indiana’s economic competitiveness through the preservation and responsible use of existing state tax incentives

    • Expand the utilization of state and local infrastructure improvement grants and tax credits for economic development projects

    • Explore exempting qualifying IT equipment purchases from state sales tax to encourage increased investment in high tech economic development projects

  • Innovation Investments: Increase Indiana’s economic competitiveness by strengthening Indiana’s assets in biosciences and life sciences through the creation of the Indiana Applied Research Enterprise to accelerate commercialized innovation in our universities and life science companies

Transportation, Infrastructure & Environment:

  • Mass Transit: Improve economic opportunity and workforce mobility through the strategic investment in a regional transit system 

    • Funding and Governance: Create a new, dedicated funding mechanism and regional governance structure to oversee the improvement and expansion of transit in the Indianapolis region

  • Local Roads & Streets: Ensure adequate funding for local roads and streets, while maintaining equitable funding for urban and suburban areas

    • Financing and Delivery: Provide maximum flexibility to local governments in the financing, design and construction of local transportation infrastructure, including the use of Public-Private Partnerships and Design-Build

  • Water Infrastructure: Support statewide policy to ensure sustained economic opportunity through responsible use and allocation of water resources and the creation of a single-source regulatory process for management of water resources

  • Brownfields: Increase funding, minimize regulation and encourage investment in brownfields to aid economic development efforts

  • Energy Efficiency: Secure state incentives for business and local government investments in energy-efficient commercial and industrial rehabilitation and fleet management

Community Redevelopment & Investment:

  • TIF: Promote sensible use of tax increment financing (TIF) for economic development projects to ensure the pursuit of specific opportunities does not jeopardize the broader goals of the community

    • Flexibility: Advocate for maximum flexibility for local government units to respond to redevelopment and economic development opportunities

    • Reporting: Establish a schedule of performance reports to local governing bodies and encourage the establishment of public online resources for tracking TIF performance metrics, funded by TIF revenue

  • Land Bank: Establish self-sustaining, community-based nonprofit Land Banks to more efficiently redevelop blighted properties and return them to the tax rolls

  • Historic Rehabilitation: Increase funding of the State Historic Rehabilitation Investment Tax Credit program to encourage redevelopment and investment in aging commercial, industrial and residential properties

Education & Workforce Development

Education:

  • Reform: Maintain and implement the recent legislative reforms in school choice  and  accountability and merit pay for teacher

  • Autonomy: Provide greater autonomy and flexibility at the individual school level upon completion of leadership training for school principals 

  • Superintendent of Public Instruction: Support the appointment of the Superintendent of Public Instruction by the Governor to oversee Indiana’s K-12 education system

  • Early Childhood Education: Support the development of publicly funded, outcome-focused, Pre-K programs as well as mandatory, fully-funded full-day kindergarten

Workforce:

  • Collaboration: Encourage strategic utilization of state economic development training grants through greater collaboration between the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and the state’s workforce agencies and higher education institutions

  • Higher Education: Incentivize early degree attainment and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) degrees within the state’s colleges and universities

  • Veteran Re-entry: Increase educational opportunities and create incentives for companies who hire returning veterans

  • Ex-Offender Re-entry: Increases incentives for companies who hire ex-offenders

  • Criminal Code: Modify state criminal code to allow low-level offenders to have alternate means of punishment which would allow them to remain employed

  • Sentencing: Preserve judicial flexibility in sentencing guidelines to encourage education  and training and address the disparity in sentencing

Immigration Reform:

  • Federal Oversight: Encourage federal leadership on immigration reform, while opposing piecemeal state solutions that create unfair employer policing responsibilities

Local Government & Fiscal Policy

Government Modernization:

  • Statewide: Continue efforts to streamline overlapping government functions through  statewide implementation of recommendations made by the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform to increase accountability, transparency and effectiveness of local governments throughout Indiana

  • UniGov: Seek greater efficiencies in municipal service delivery and finance in Marion County by building on the principles of unified government including county-wide consolidation of fire departments in Marion County

  • Capital Project Reviews: Reduce redundancy and promote strategic capital investment in Marion County by allowing the comprehensive, local land use and building code review process to suffice for state review process

Local Government Finance:

  • Home Rule: Allow local governments greater flexibility over their own structural and fiscal matters while minimizing the burden of property taxes

  • County Option Income Tax: Allow the creation of an incremental County Option Income Tax (COIT) that would remain in the county of employment