INDIANAPOLIS | Region construction workers can rest assured their unemployment benefits are safe, and some might find work building flood walls.
State lawmakers reached agreement Tuesday on a plan to repair Indiana's bankrupt unemployment system without cutting worker benefits. They still were hammering out a budget deal that includes $14 million to complete Little Calumet River levees.
"It couldn't be a nicer present. Today is my 53rd wedding anniversary," Sen. Frank Mrvan, D-Hammond. said Tuesday. "I'll tell my wife I'm sorry I wasn't there but we got $14 million, and we don't have to go through this again."
Earlier budget proposals offered only $9 million, meaning Northwest Indiana legislators would have to rattle the tin cup again in two years. Downstate legislators have grown weary of continued funding pleas for the two-decade-old project.
School funding remains the sticking point as House Democrats and Senate Republicans work to pass a new two-year, $30 billion state budget ahead of tonight's adjournment deadline.
Republicans offered education funding formula changes designed to aid East Chicago, Gary and other districts destined to lose state dollars due to dwindling enrollment. But Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said GOP negotiators want to reduce the $13.3 billion in school funding included in the biennial budget by $100 million.
The move, which would leave Indiana with $1.4 billion in rainy day funds, is aimed at heading off a potential budget veto by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels. But the proposal isn't popular with Democrats.
Meanwhile, region legislators continued closed-door negotiations Tuesday on an ambitious plan to replace one of Gary's two lakefront riverboats with a land-based casino near Interstate 80/94. Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville, put the odds of striking a last-minute deal at 50 percent.
Any resulting increase in gaming revenues would go to build a teaching hospital in Gary, extend South Shore commuter rail lines to Lowell and Valparaiso and redevelop the Lake Michigan shoreline. The state wouldn't get a cut.
The casino move is tied to legislation to create a local income-tax backed transit authority to oversee South Shore improvements in Lake, Porter, LaPorte and St. Joseph counties and create a regional bus system for Lake and Porter counties. Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, called it crucial to address the transit piece now because cash-strapped municipal bus systems in East Chicago, Gary and Hammond might collapse before year's end.
