‘Study’ panels sound ho-hum, but carry great weight

From the ho-hum to the fiery, the bitterly divisive to the harmoniously bipartisan, the Indiana General Assembly's summer study committees are much more important than their name would imply.

Lawmakers announced plans to study an array of issues this summer, from timely questions about problems with online student testing and alleged public corruption in Indianapolis to drier issues including the state's tax code.

The meetings often set the stage for future action in the Statehouse.

The summer after the 2011 session was dominated by highly partisan and divisive hearings on the right-to-work ban on union fees, replete with daylong hearings and hundreds of chanting union protesters. Not surprisingly, the right-to-work battle overshadowed the 2012 session. Last summer was dominated by lengthy, involved and bipartisan efforts to respond to troubles at the Department of Child Services. The resulting answers, including money to hire new caseworkers and changes to the centralized hotline system, were approved this year.

The growing interest in summer study committees, and their potential power, has leaders on the General Assembly's Legislative Council pondering how to balance the many requests against the constraints of lawmakers who meet in Indianapolis a few months out of each year. The council sets the schedule for study committees.

"This year there were more required studies than I can ever remember in my 18 years on legislative council, statutorily-required 'We must study this'" studies, said House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis. The greater number of mandatory hearings could become the subject of new limits in legislation itself next year, Bosma said, noting that he might seek the use of more routine, standing committees each summer instead of establishing a new committee for each issue.

The agenda for this summer was already largely well-known by the end of the 2013 session last month. Tough questions about implementing national Common Core education standards, raising taxes to pay for transit in central Indiana and others were all "sent to study," as they say around the Statehouse, instead of being decided on immediately.

But a few important issues were added to the roster only recently.

The high-profile arrests last week of Indianapolis civic leaders and public officials accused of flipping vacant homes for personal profit through the city's land bank program spurred Bosma and others to request a review of land bank programs statewide. And an investigation by The Indianapolis Star into problems with how casino money was used on economic development projects, including the failed Carbon Motors project in Connersville, will likely be plumbed by the Legislature's tax and fiscal policy study panel, Bosma said.

It's unlikely that any issue will draw quite the amount of protest and rancor that the right-to-work hearings did in 2011. But the inquiry into problems with the online portion of this year's high-stakes ISTEP+ online test is already looking to be the highest-profile review. Testing was disrupted for two days across the state as computer screens froze and students were forced to log in repeatedly. Some districts, including Fort Wayne Community Schools, have said they won't accept the results of the scores, which determine student performance, school rankings and teacher merit pay, without a review by an independent third party.

The issue didn't arise until shortly after the 2013 session wrapped up, but it's one that quickly drew the interest of Bosma, Senate President Pro Tem David Long and the top Democrats, House Minority Leader Scott Pelath and Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane.

"We want answers," said Long, R-Fort Wayne. "We want answers to why this happened, how it could have happened, what they're doing to fix it most importantly and we also want to find out whether this has tainted the test or not."

It could also be the summer's most bipartisan showing, as Democrats and Republicans both pepper representatives from CTB/McGraw-Hill and the Department of Education with questions about the performance and CTB/McGraw-Hill's $95 million contract with the state.