2000 REPORT CARD

Amend the Indiana Financial Institutions Tax

The Chamber’s Position: The Chamber supports legislation to amend the Financial Institutions Tax statute to allow Indiana-chartered financial institutions to only pay FIT on their income derived from Indiana sources rather than all sources.

Outcome: Legislation supporting this position was enacted into law.

Education, training, and workforce development

The Chamber’s Position: A direct relationship exists between area education systems and the needs of the business community for a skilled and productive workforce. Indeed, crucial to St. Joseph County’s social and economic future is the development of its human capital resource.

The Chamber supports the establishment of state tax credits to be applied to business tax liabilities for qualified employer-funded employee training programs and work-based learning initiatives conducted in partnership with local school corporations.

Outcome: Legislation was introduced by Sen. Joe Zakas and Rep. Richard Mangus to address The Chamber’s position. While discussions were held on the issue at a much more detailed level than prior years, no legislation was enacted.

Repeal the inventory tax

The Chamber’s Position: The Chamber supports legislation to reduce or eliminate the negative affects of the inventory tax on business.

Outcome: As 2000 was not a budget-writing year, no legislation was passed to deal with this issue. At the same time, the Border Cities Chamber Coalition raised public awareness of the issue through legislative and media contacts throughout the year.

School corporation teacher retirement, pension, and severance liability bonding

The Chamber’s Position: The Chamber supports the limited use of a General Obligation Bond for school corporations to solve their retirement/severance liability problems under the following conditions:

1. A negotiated plan reducing the overall liability to the school corporation must be in place

2. The negotiated plan must reduce the unfunded liability to the school corporation

3. The school corporation is limited to a one-time-only use of the General Obligation Bond for this purpose

4. The cost of the General Obligation Bond could not exceed bonding limitations in place for the school corporation

5. Tax reductions in other funds would have to be made to equal any increase these bonds might cause in the debt service fund

The Chamber views this initiative advanced by the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation, as a pilot program and urges expansion of this program to other school districts in similar situations should it prove successful.

Outcome: Legislation supporting this position was enacted into law through the strenuous effort of the St. Joseph County delegation to the Indiana General Assembly.

Upgrade of U.S. 31

The Chamber’s Position: The Chamber urges the Indiana General Assembly and the Indiana Department of Transportation to implement a plan for the upgrade of U.S. 31 to freeway standards. The Chamber supports a group or individual to produce a business plan to develop a coalition of communities along the U.S. 31 corridor to work with elected and appointed officials to accomplish the upgrade. The Chamber further supports modest financial assistance to seed the development of the business plan and/or to support the yet-to-be formed coalition.

Outcome: The U.S. 31 Coalition, Inc., which was developed in large part due to Chamber leadership, held its formal launch at the end of the 2000 Indiana General Assembly with events in Lakeville, Kokomo, and Indianapolis. The Indiana Department of Transportation authorized environmental studies for the Marion and Hamilton County and St. Joseph and Marshall County portions of U.S. 31. It is anticipated that the Howard County environmental study will be authorized soon.