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good morning it's Ryan Hoff legislative director for the association of Indiana counties presenting your strangely times 2020 legislative update obviously it's been a few weeks but it seems like longer than that since the legislative session actually ended actually you know now that we're in the midst of pandemic the world's a much different place but oddly enough this year's legislative session was ending just at the time that everyone was coming to grips with closures and cancellation of basketball basketball games and it seems like a much different world than where we left on signing day of the legislative session but the fact remains these are new Indiana laws that we would like to share with you and try not to go into too much a discussion of kovin 19 because all of this took place before anyone understood where we were going to end up only a few short weeks later but this year was a short session meaning that did not write the two-year state budget going into this fall's elections who understood there were always going to be a lot of retirements and that certainly seemed to be the case of multiple senators multiple members of the Indiana House of Representatives have all announced their retirement so you're going to see a much different legislature next year and that continues a trend over the past couple of years where you have new legislators requiring more outreach getting to know the legislators educating them on our issues probably most notable is fact that Speaker of the Indiana House Representative Brian Bosma announced his retirement going into this session took in the last week of the legislative session the gavel formally transferred to representative Todd Houston of fishers who becomes the new Speaker of the Indiana House that will be especially in going into next year's budget session of course this year is fall elections you have all 100 members of DNA and a house up for election and half of the 50 members of the Indiana Senate so you'll have 125 elections for legislators this fall and even though it won't take place until after the census is complete everyone has one I kind of on the redistricting that will happen post census going into this year's legislative session there were multiple issues that were thought to be the hot topics for this session that included the teacher read for IDI campaign that saw if you remember way back to last fall saw thousands of teachers rally on the Statehouse lawn in the State House on organization day interested into multiple and multiple different things related to education pay testing myriad of things also health care costs and hospital profits were receiving a lot of focus also distracted driving the governor was pushing for a distracted driving law meaning we can't have a cellphone in your hand or while you're driving also discussion of electric utility generation facilities was a hot topic whether or not locals should continue to have a role in siting of electric generation facilities AIC on your behalf tracked them over 250 of the over 900 bills that were filed this year in the India and General Assembly that doesn't include include of course the you know hundreds of amendments filed in addition to more hundreds of good ideas that legislators and others have so it certainly keeps you on your toes especially in the short session all the action is time compressed so it's pretty fast paced environment but getting into the legislation as passed dealing first with state and local finance hospital 11:13 was this year's DL gf kind of cleanup bill if you will a lot of different issues dealing with local government County finances particular a lot of small tweaks a lot of cleanup I will just go through the kind of the high-level issues of course we won't have time to go in detail into every issue however some interesting interesting new legislation to be aware of as County officials first what has always been known as the assessed value growth quotient is now changed to be called the max levy growth quotient to more closely mirror the actual use of that information this legislation also redefines yard improvements for purposes of golf course assessment immense or requirement on owners can provide income data to the Assessors be sat up also fixes the business personal property property tax Board of Appeals final determination deadline in code for a handful of years there had been a loophole that allowed a taxpayer that if they drug out their business personal appeal they could drag drag it out long enough to the point where the P turbo was unable to issue a final determination before the statutory deadline thus ensuring that the taxpayer would always win this legislation cleans up that loophole and ensures that the appeal is based on merit not on a timing loophole the bill requires the tax bill sent out to include information on where the taxpayer can locate a subsequent years assessment information it doesn't have to include the actual information of what the next year's assessment is however it will have to say where they can find it whether that calling the assessor's office if it's posted on the county's website wherever the taxpayer can find it the bill requires that any Township budget increase or additional appropriation must be adopted by the County Fiscal body if the majority of the township board are precluded from voting due to being immediate mem family member of the trustee again that is a must be adopted by the County Fiscal body currently there is some advisory non-binding review by the County Fiscal body but this would be a binding review house enrolled act 1113 also eliminates unnecessary information from the sales disclosure form DL gf and Assessors and other interested groups worked on this over the course of last summer the bill extends repayment of Appeal Awards options for the county the county has three options a five year repayment or credit if the refund is over $500,000 seven years if it's over five million dollars or ten years if the repayment of after an appeal is over ten million dollars probably fairly rare that will get over a ten million dollar refund but on some especially large properties it is certainly possible the bill extends a prohibition on delinquent tax sale purchasers from purchasing more property in tax hill extends that to any other business entity in which the delinquent individual has a business interest so they can't shell form new shell corporations to buy up tax sale property if they are delinquent in a different business entity also requires that a taxpayer remains qualified for property tax deductions if they're a V rises above $200,000 that was change from last year but this extends it to cover any increase including reassessment so unless the increase is attributable to physical improve on the property just makes it a broader guideline for counties to be able to follow moving on to House bill 1065 which include a change to lit board voting processes this bill changes the voting procedures for a local income tax Council this is former couette counties in which a single city controls the lit Council so that's allen county monroe county some other counties under current law the Fiscal body of the county city or town that is a member of the lit Council cast its vote as a bloc in total for that unit this bill amends that process in those applicable counties so that each vote of your fiscal bodies individual members count toward the total lit council vote not as a vote of that units fiscal body the bill also voids action taken by a lit council between the new year in April 1st of 2020 to prevent a rush to adopt new rates before enactment of this legislation moving on to some what I term state government oversight this is where the legislature gets involved in local decision-making Senate bill 100 fields with non-conforming uses of structures provides that the parcel owner shall be allowed to reconstruct repair or renovate a damaged or destroyed non-conforming structure if the square foot of that foundation is not increased the background here it was a part a lake home in Libas noble County had some foundation damage the county was telling them that to repair their foundation required a building permit and because the structure was a non-conforming use due to setbacks from the property line they were not allowed to repair their home this bill would continue to allow them to repair reconstruct or vade damaged or destroyed non-conforming structure as long as the size of the building is not increased does not apply in historic districts or floodplains Hospital 1414 deals with Indiana utility Regulatory Commission oversight of electric generation facility closures specifically closure of any generation facility that generates over 80 megawatts the utility would have to know notify the IU r/c of its pending closure the IU RC would hold public notice and public meeting on the closure this bill was aimed at keeping coal plants open until a legislative task force could complete a two-year study of electric generation and Mead in Indiana has the potential to impact counties that have coal generation facilities in terms of the schedule of their closure and not only their closure the pending loss of that property tax pace but it also has the potential to impact counties where wind and solar developments may be may be ripe those those that development may be slowed as a result of this legislation Senate bill 408 was the Department of Revenue cleanup bill of note for County in that large piece of legislation is that it requires counties to provide parcel level GIS data to the state in order to populate the new Department of Revenue computer system this will help to make sure tax compliance is correct in terms of it was like food and beverage taxes but also will allow the Department of Revenue to collect income tax in a different way down to the parcel level which is necessary if the legislature continues down the line of can during separating local government finances in terms of income taxes to allow counties their own rate and cities and towns their own rate and you wouldn't have a combination of authority there that was not part of this legislation but has been a broad discussion topic for the past couple years and this is a small step in that direction so that the Leger legislature may continue considering that concept hospital 11:08 was a State Board of accounts legislation allows s POA to issue supreme subpoenas to forests filing of certain reports clarifies that a judge may remove a local official from office for failure to file audited reports interference with an audit or adoption of a system of accounting and Institute's a financial penalty of up to $500 a day for which the official can be personally liable as an alternative to removal from office this followed a Supreme Court decision in Indiana where a city's clerk treasurer had not accounted for any spending had not documented any financial information for basically the entirety of her term of office and this legislation codifies a large part of what was in that Supreme Court decision Senate bill 216 deals with disclosure of information to an offender updates the public the access to public records acts of personal information on a correctional probation community corrections or law enforcement officer judges crime victims or their family members may be withheld from disclosure when requested by a person person in prison County Jail detention facility or Community Corrections program currently under law there is a prohibition against providing that information to offenders incarcerated in a penal institution and this legislation would expand that concept to county jails other detention facilities or Community Corrections programs onto government organization Senate bill 20 dealt with county plane Commission's and requires that appointments alternates designee Zoar replacements on the plan commission must meet the same residency requirements as the initial member House bill 1182 deals with syringe exchanges requiring a syringe exchange program to provide for testing of communicable diseases and provide services to the individual if they test positive and also to establish a referral process for participants who need information regarding communicable diseases House bill 10:47 deals with the justice reinvestment Advisory Council this adds members of the evidence-based decision-making panel to the justice reinvestment Advisory Council those are big names for two different groups who have been studying the criminal justice system in Indiana and taking a look at the issues that have been the fallout from enactment of House bill 1006 for the past handful of years that sent level-six offenders back to the county this legislation would include a IC representation to the state advisory panel which conducts a state-level review of local Corrections programs jails probation and the process is used by the do C and the division of mental health and addiction in awarding grants to counties that are part of the Justin justice reinvestment program hospital 13:46 deals with jail overcrowding data one of the missing links in criminal justice in indiana has been a lack of real-time information on who is in jail why they're in jail and so forth it requires the Indiana Colonel Justice Institute to receive data from Jarek from sheriff's on jail population in jail statistics and then assigns the justice reinvestment Advisory Council to review that data and make recommendations on strategies for alleviating overcrowding and providing alternatives to incarceration tax sales and land issues House bill 1090 deals with cemeteries allows but not does not require counties to assume maintenance responsibilities over cemeteries there was testimony in the legislative process that there were counties out there who were interested in being able to take over what had been kind of forgotten cemeteries to voluntarily take over the maintenance of those except there was no provision allowing that in Indiana law so this bill would for the first time allow the county to assume that maintenance responsibilities if they choose to do so House bill 1370 authorizes counties to enter into agreements forming regional land banks there's an area in southwest Indiana who was particularly interested in establishing a regional land bank I think five counties were looking at going together to create a land bank and for surveyors and commissioners Senate bill 229 deals with isolated wetland permit in the last days of legislative session this is one of the most hotly contested pieces of legislation but it provides that a permit is not required from idem Department of Environmental Management for summary construction or maintenance projects of regulated drains as long as the work takes place within the current easement and the reconstruction does not substantially change the characteristics of the drain for which it was designed and constructed now this only affects state regulated wetlands and permits does not affect federal wetlands jurisdiction of federal government will still need to be determined and recognized where appropriate but it does take item out of the regulatory and permitting structure for these isolated wetlands and certain reconstruction projects now with that I will hand it over to Christine who will go through some court and elections issues for you and I will be back after her presentation great Thank You Ryan my name is Christine Trina I'm the director of planning and government affairs associate here with the AIC and I did promise a few clerks that I would include I would include a picture of my son in his future voters a t-shirt in this slide deck now and honestly this picture was taken last year however the shirt does still fit and he will be wearing it proudly on June 2nd so diving into election issues House enrolled Act 11:47 allows a town or city with population less than 3,500 the option to move the municipal election to an even-numbered year again this is simply an option and it would it would give the option to about 18 small towns with mayors I'd like to thank fountain County Clerk Paula koppenhaver for suggesting this language and testifying at the Statehouse House enrolled act 12 67 is language that Knox County Clerk David Shel
on suggested and testified on at the Statehouse as well it allows the candidate 81 days to withdraw before the primary election instead of 85 clerk Shelton had a situation where a candidate withdrew after the 85 day cutoff and the county had the expense of that ballot which wouldn't have been necessary if the withdraw had come in earlier so this gives people essentially the weekend to give it one last serious thought senate enrolled back to 12 88 was authored by representative Mosley and gives County election boards the option to offer local candidates to file campaign finance reports electronically just like the state does other than the three bills that I just reviewed there were four other major election bills that that worked their way through the process this session unfortunately two of them died in the last days of session those were Senate bill 178 and House bill 1222 we'll revisit some of those issues again next session and any of those issues that we weren't able to insert into these other two bills Senate enrolled act 334 saw most of the language from Senate bill seventy-eight and some of the House bill 1222 language added during conference committee Senate and Rolex 334 it requires county boards of elections and registration to attend election security meetings hosted by the Indiana election division it requires the election division to establish best practices for election officials to give instructions to voters on the voting process including how to vote by straight party straight party ticket and how that process works it also requires language on the ballot or on the voting system to tell voters that straight party ticket straight party voting is not required then it makes changes to the voter list maintenance program and removes Indiana from the Kansas cross-check program and establishes the Indiana data enhancement Association or idea to administer the voter list maintenance it sets parameters for when a county may rely on voter registration information from other entities in other states and requires voter registration offices to determine if an individual authorized the cancellation of a previous voter registration when they registered to vote and also requires county sheriff's to send a quarterly report of individuals in correctional facilities to the county voter registration office if you attended our legislative conference in February we talked a lot about Senate enrolled act 179 it requires counties to enter into an agreement with the Secretary of State to use a threat intelligence and enterprise security company called fireEye the provision does have a sunset of January 1st 2023 which is how long the funding is available there are also provisions to protect the statewide voter registration system including some standards that must be met to access SVRs and also the requirement that any USB drives used to upload unofficial precinct election results that they have malware protection on them Senate enrolled act 179 also adds requirements to check an election equipment batteries of battery backups and add some clarity to the number of voting systems included in a public test voter verify our voter verifiable paper audit trails or Vivi hats those were a hot topic during last session during the 2019 session and summit enrolled act 179 adds clarity to to when they are to be printed and how they are to be used in a in a recount there's also a provision to address some voter confusion and removes the the active or inactive status of a voter from being displayed in the ecole book and then it does address how the Secretary of State will designate and administer risk limiting audits moving on now to court issues Senate enrolled act 47 deals with expungement issues it defines protection order records and requires companies that provide background checks to treat them in the same manner that they do expunged convictions it stipulates that if a court reduces a level 6 felony to a misdemeanor that the five year waiting period for expungement begins on the date of the conviction and not when it was converted to a misdemeanor it also allows law enforcement agencies to inquire about an an expunged record and if the person applies for a job and they may refuse employment because of it and then it specifies the procedure to expunge records of a collateral action that was entered in a different County than the county that issued the expungement order Senate enrolled act 187 allows the Elkhart County Clerk and courts to expand to a site outside of the current courthouse Senate enrolled act 256 is the annual courts and judicial officers bill it specifies when requests will be taken for new courts and officers and what information is needed Clark Delaware and Marshall counties were approved for new courts and Gibson Hamilton and Jennings counties for new magistrates Sinnott enrolled act 302 establishes a procedure for a court to determine if a defendant is indigent and allows the court to prorate fines fees and court costs based on the person's reasonable ability to pay senate enrolled act 424 expands and at the address confidentiality program to include victims of harassment human trafficking intimidation and invasion of privacy and with that I'll turn it back over to Ryan for some final thoughts of course bills that actually passed only make up a fraction of the legislation that is filed every session a large part of what AIC does on your behalf is preventing bad legislation from becoming a law in fact that probably takes more time than getting something positive passed in the first place so wanted to go over some of the bills that did not pass to discuss the the type of ideas that the legislature sometimes has that we need to do a good job of educating how these issues would affect local government County government again these did not pass although a lot of these bills we've seen before and I feel like we'll see you again so feel free that when you're talking to your legislators bring up some of these bills that didn't pass to make sure your local legislators understand the detrimental impact that they would have your account for example Senate bill 446 was as drafted was a stormwater fee exemption that would have exempted all governmental nonprofit and agricultural land from paying stormwater fees now that would have been a massive fiscal hit two counties taking all of these payers out of the system potentially causing shortfall likely causing shortfalls in your drainage budget possibly endangering any bonds that you have related to stormwater fees and shifting all of the burden of those fees on to the remaining base of taxpayers which likely would have been homeowners so even though government old nonprofit AG land under this legislation would have been exempt someone still gotta pay for for the infrastructure that is being put in by county government and largely homeowners who would have been left holding the back again did not pass although it was heard in committee and it was moving through the process at one point House bill 13:09 was a verification of exempt Pollution Control personal property in Indiana law there is an exemption from business personal property for certain pollution control devices this would have removed the requirement the idem verified to the county if that personal property is exempt item through this legislation was attempting to shift that responsibility onto the Assessor directly however it's a little baffling as to why they think that the Assessor is best placed to verify if a pollution control device is actually installed and then properly working again did not pass Senate bill 3385 was a business personal tax exemption which would have changed the valuation basis or purposes of the under $48,000 business personal exemption used to be known as the de minimis exemption however it's been expanded to the point where I'm not sure you can really call it the minimis anymore so under Indiana law if a business personal payer if their entire business personal property is has an acquisition cost of under $40,000 that are exempt from paying business personal tax this would have changed that from the acquisition cost as the basis for determining whether they were under forty thousand to a depreciated value of under forty thousand dollars that would have roughly tripled the fiscal impact to counties and especially given that they just rate raised it from twenty thousand the threshold from 20,000 to 40,000 last year we felt it was especially harsh on on local units to so for loss of tax base again this year this bill did pass through the Indiana Senate our did not receive a hearing in the Indiana House of Representatives Senate bill 148 originally dealt with zoning and manufactured homes prohibiting at an ordinance a local ordinance from denying a structure solely because the structure is a manufactured home or main dating sites requirements for a manufactured home place in a mobile home community for at least 3/4 of sessions that's all that bill contained however in the last week of consideration before conference committee started it was amended to also include a complete preemption of any local ordinance that regulates the landlord tenant relationship that bill was vetoed by the governor and in my current recollection I think that's governor Holcomb his first veto of legislation but the bill was vetoed after session after hearing opposition from housing advocates and local government so again did not become law would be eligible for a veto override at some point but the governor's veto message did indicate that especially in light of Cova 19 it just didn't make sense to completely preempt local ordinances dealing with landlord tenant relationships another bill that did not pass this session though made it quite a long way through the process was Senate bill 324 dealing with micro markets which are essentially large vending machines that dispense fresh food this bill would have prohibited a political subdivision from charging an installation fee for a micro marker or a vending machine also would have limited the annual County Department of Health permit fee for a micro Market do not exceed $60 and a permit fee vending machine could not exceed eight dollars now vending machines and micro markets are maybe considered somewhat somewhat a niche function or in a niche review that County Health Department's do however this for the first time would have limited a local units ability to adopt a suitable fee that covers the administrative costs of providing those inspections and certainly did not want to create a situation where this year its micro markets next year its restaurants the following year it's another industry everyone looking to adopt a limit on the amount that they have to pay for their permits or inspections again that bill did not pass with a lot of local health department's being actively involved in contacting their legislators in opposition looking ahead to next session now this of course it's always a little bit difficult to look into the crystal ball and see what may happen from one session to the next the only thing that we can be sure about is that they're going to have to consider a state budget next year beyond that anything that we may be talking about today that isn't related to copa90 no response who knows obviously there will have to be some level of a response in the state budget not in the state budget that will certainly take a large amount of the legislators focus beyond that there are issues which may directly or indirectly relate to Coba 19 healthcare costs you know obviously everything surrounding hospitals is different today than it was even two months ago teacher pay will obviously be an issue in the next budget rural broadband now that everyone is working well I say everyone a lot of people are now working remotely who didn't previously work remotely are and rural broadband being available to a large part of Indiana will continue to move up the list of priorities mental health facilities the mvh 50% spend rule that has been a limiter and a bottleneck for local government finances and local as I mentioned before local income tax authority and considering whether or not each unit should have their own adoption and spending authority to no longer kind of commingle local funds you know you have an adopting body having to adopt tax rates for other units so again looking into next session it's all going to be a new world and the issues that will be important to the legislature continue to involve evolve and we will be here on behalf of Association of Indiana counties to provide input into that process if you have any questions about any of the legislative action that happened this session or looking ahead to next session or any other matter related to county government please feel free to reach out to us you see our contact information for david Bottorff our executive director myself christine as well as our website and certainly want to thank everyone for their involvement this past legislative session always encouraged county officials to get involved in talking to your state level officials if you haven't been already and again thank you very much and we look forward to representing you again next session
