INDIANAPOLIS | Gov. Mitch Daniels calls the roughly $150,000 cost of the special legislative session that ended Tuesday night "a great bargain" for Hoosier taxpayers, but the General Assembly's top Democrat says Gary schools had a better deal on the table in late April.
"Hoosier taxpayers, I think, should be enormously glad and relieved at this outcome," the Republican governor said Wednesday of a two-year, $28.5-billion state budget he signed into law the night before. "It also was a huge step forward in education reform."
Legislative Democrats relented to removing artificial limits the state had placed on establishing new charter schools, and lawmakers repealed a law that prohibited the use of student-achievement statistics in evaluating teacher performance.
The budget also spends about $1 billion less than lawmakers contemplated at the conclusion of the four-month regular legislative session that ended April 29. That means less money for declining-enrollment schools in East Chicago and Gary and -- for some lawmakers -- an abdication of Democrats' principles.
"(Gov. Daniels) stands tall. I respect him, because he fights for what he believes in," Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, said Tuesday in a blistering speech aimed at fellow Democrats. "We have not fought for what we believe in. We caved in."
Despite 11th-hour attempts to steer more money to high-poverty rural and urban schools, Gary Community School Corp. is projected to face a $12.4 million decline in state funding. That's mostly because lawmakers expect the district's enrollment to drop another 13 percent over the biennium, from 11,570 this school year to 10,106 in 2011
With the moribund economy taking an 8-percent bite out of state tax collections, it's unlikely legislators could have guaranteed no funding slide. But the budget that failed in April -- a plan Daniels vowed to veto, saying it spent too much -- would've triggered only a $6 million loss to Gary schools.
Democratic House Speaker Pat Bauer faulted Smith for joining Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, in refusing to vote for the April budget deal, because legislative leaders would not authorize a land-based casino for Gary.
"You can do that sort of thing," said Bauer, D-South Bend. "But you ought to know what your risk is."
