By KEN de la BASTIDE and SCOTT SMITH
Tribune staff writers
January 04, 2009 11:09 pm
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The cost of lottery tickets could be increasing if legislation being proposed by State Rep. Ron Herrell becomes law in 2009.
Herrell, D-30th District, said Friday he is proposing to extend the state’s 7 percent sales tax to lottery tickets and scratch-off games.
He said that any other games people participate in or attend the state’s 7 percent sales tax is paid.
“The lottery is a game,” Herrell said.
The implementing of the sales tax on the sale of lottery tickets could raise as much as $40 million, according to Herrell.
“I want the money raised to be used for scholarships to Ivy Tech,” he said.
Herrell said he is also introducing legislation that will allow adults who have been adopted the ability to find siblings. Currently, adults adopted since 1993 have the ability to locate siblings, but he wants to amend the current law to make the capability available to all adopted adults.
“It has to be approved by all the siblings,” he said.
Herrell is also introducing legislation sought by Howard County Sheriff Marty Talbert that will require police agencies be notified when a vehicle is about to be repossessed.
State Sen. Jim Buck, R-Kokomo, has served in the Legislature since 1994, but he’ll be a freshman in the Indiana Senate this year.
Despite that freshman status, Buck may still become the point man on anti-annexation legislation this year, having for months promised to make that issue his main legislative focus.
Howard County’s other state senator, Brandt Hershman, R-Monticello, may be spending most of this session working on the state budget and tax issues.
Now in his eighth year in the Senate, Hershman was appointed to the chairmanship of the newly created Senate Tax & Fiscal Policy Committee.
“I’ve held back on legislation this year because of the role I’ll be playing in the budget and the new tax committee chairmanship, making sure I have time to focus on those issues,” he said.
Still, Hershman should be making headlines this year.
He’s been chosen to carry legislation for Gov. Mitch Daniels, which Hershman hopes will establish guidelines for tax rebates if the state’s operating balance “surplus” grows too large.
The surplus now stands at $1.4 billion, a little more than 10 percent of what the state spends in a typical year. Hershman said Friday the surplus balance “is in the appropriate range” right now.
Hershman said it will be interesting to see whether the Legislature accepts Daniels’ wish that the surplus remain untouched.
With a $763 million gap between anticipated state revenue and current state spending, that may be difficult.
“I think it’s a prudent goal,” Hershman said. “If, at the end of the day, you have to make some drawdown, it wouldn’t bother me so much. But from the outset, that’s a prudent goal, because you don’t know how long [the recession] is going to last.”
Buck’s main legislative focus — annexation — has been driven by the ongoing annexation battle in Howard County.
Buck said he has several goals, including making Indiana one of about a dozen states that do not allow involuntary annexation.
He also plans to introduce legislation which, if passed, would limit the amount of time an anti-remonstrance waiver would remain in effect.
Numerous property owners who purchased parcels in the area now targeted by Kokomo have complained they weren’t aware the title of their property had been bound — in perpetuity — to an anti-remonstrance waiver.
Buck said his proposal would start a 10-year clock ticking on every existing remonstrance waiver in the state. He acknowledged that even if the legislation passes, it will probably be challenged in court.
Finally, Buck wants a rule requiring cities to have a revised fiscal plan in place before final passage of an annexation ordinance.
He mentioned the fact the Kokomo Common Council deleted several west-side areas from the city’s original annexation ordinance, and then passed the ordinance on final reading, despite the fact the city hadn’t had time to revise the fiscal plan for providing services.
Kokomo city officials contend that would only be required if a city increased the targeted annexation area.
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