Indiana jobs-creation provisions are in peril

Mar 2, 2010 — The Indianapolis Star

Mary Beth Schneider

Mar. 2, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- House Democrats say finding a way to boost jobs is the No. 1 priority in these final days of the legislature, but first they'll have to find a way around the Indiana Senate.

Senate President Pro Tempore David Long, R-Fort Wayne, ruled that the jobs package Democrats had inserted into Senate Bill 396 was not germane to the bill's main subject matter of addressing agricultural property tax assessments.

That means the program is dead unless another bill can be found that is a more acceptable home for the issue.

That home will have to be found quickly, as House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, has scheduled Thursday as the last day of this year's session.

SB 396 had passed the House unanimously after it was amended to include a jobs program that Bauer said could help as many as 60,000 Hoosiers find work.

The package would include a jobs-creation tax credit giving businesses with fewer than 150 workers a $3,000 credit for each new employee hired, up to a limit of $100,000, through 2012.

That program is modeled after one in Mississippi.

In addition, the package included a new employer tax incentive giving a new business a credit equal to 50 percent of its tax liability for its first two years of operations in Indiana.

Also included was a requirement that the Indiana Economic Development Corp. give priority consideration to counties hardest hit by closures or reductions in work forces, and a provision requiring the IEDC to recover incentives it paid to companies that don't meet their jobs-creation or investment commitments.

Bauer last week called the House version of the jobs provisions this session's biggest accomplishment and said he expected most of the package to make it to the governor's desk.

Monday, he said he was surprised the Senate would reject the provisions on technicalities.

"I did not expect that at all. I know we all seem to be interested in creating jobs," Bauer said.

Long, he said, should find another route for the jobs package to be voted upon, adding that if senators don't find a bill into which the programs can be inserted, they would be killing jobs.

Long said Monday that Bauer had not spoken to him about the issue. He said his decision had nothing to do with the merits of the jobs programs and everything to do with the rules.

"If the language does not fit within the subject matter of the bill, we don't allow it," he said.

Rep. Peggy Welch, a Bloomington Democrat who has championed the Mississippi program as one Indiana should emulate, said she wasn't surprised by Long's decision. She said some bills have been identified as potential homes for the package, but nothing has been agreed upon.

"We're not giving up on creating jobs for Hoosiers," she said.

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