Counsel from an Indianapolis law firm will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court in April that an annual truck fee charged by the state of Michigan should be struck down. If the high court agrees, trucking firms in Indiana and around the nation could see more than $70 million in fees paid since 1995 refunded. Trucking firms have a lot riding on Scopelitis Garvin Light & Hanson. A ruling upholding the Michigan fee could embolden other states to adopt similar…
Amid all the resignations and terminations in state government recently, at least one holdover appointed by the previous administration is remaining on the job. And small-business advocates could not be more pleased. David Dorff, whom former Gov. Joe Kernan tabbed in July to lead the state’s new Office of Small Business Advocacy, received word from Gov. Mitch Daniels in early January that he would remain on staff. Kernan unveiled the agency last summer as part of a series of initiatives…
Expect House Bill 1188, authored by Rep. Rich McClain, R-Logansport, and awaiting a hearing in the new Committee on Government and Regulatory Reform, to provoke a lot of questions and controversy. In fact, the measure already has caused some panic among assorted business, professional, trade and local government interests. McClain’s measure, which should receive a favorable reception in the new panel chaired by red-tape-busting Rep. Jim Buck, R-Kokomo, would place a one-year moratorium on the operation of all-yes, all-statutorily created…
Asset allocation is a term regularly used in the investment industry. A close cousin of diversification, it refers to the division of an investor’s dollars between a variety of different “asset classes,” and is generally considered to be a tool to control risk. The two most basic asset classes are simply stocks and bonds. There was a time when simple “models” were employed by institutional investors, such as pension funds, with the rule of thumb formula being a portfolio of…
But Galyan’s name still carries weight like one of his old store’s GoLite Gust backpacks. Galyan-thesalesman-turned-fund-raiser managed to attract 30 outdoorsmen last week to dine in a bistro that carved vegetables into unmanly shapes. Then he convinced them to fork over cash to help protect 40 million acres of land-in southwest Alaska. “I’m Pat Galyan, of former Galyan’s fame,” he told an audience that ranged from the CEO of a window company to a top-dog lawyer who told his tablemates…
Harold Calloway said his sudden decision last week to decline his appointment as Indiana’s next insurance commissioner boiled down to a reluctance to leave the business he built from scratch. His change of heart had nothing to do with several state-income-tax warrants filed against him and his wife, Frankye, according to Calloway. All the warrants have been satisfied or paid, according to state records. Gov. Mitch Daniels announced late last month that he had picked Calloway, 58, to become the…
But outside his camp, others at Rose-Hulman are calling for Midgley’s scalp. They fear the man who replaced Samuel Hulbert in July is another George Armstrong Custer. A pair of sudden resignations at nationally renowned business incubator Rose-Hulman Ventures provoked the skirmish that now threatens to become an all-out assault on Midgley’s leadership. “We cannot trust him,” said a Rose-Hulman dean who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This is by far not the only time I have felt this way,…
Lawmakers were treated Jan. 18 to what Hoosiers have quickly become accustomed to seeing from the new governor: a well-conceived strategy perfectly executed. Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, delivered a compelling State of the State address, reminding the audience at the Statehouse-and in living rooms in all 92 counties-of the marching orders they gave him in November. He detailed the daunting but not insurmountable short-term problems Indiana faces, and outlined how bright he believes the future can be in just…
There is nothing like a war and a recession to increase the size of government payrolls. Yet the hiring behavior of the public sector in the last four years has been unusual, when compared with previous recessions. The data tell us much of the growth in recent years has come from state and local governments. But they do not tell us why. There has been much stronger job growth in the public sector than in the private sector in the…
The other night, former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton appeared on my TV. They said the tsunami had been devastating. They said people need help. They asked me to send money. “No one can change what happened,” Bush said. “But we can all Slow tsunami wreaks havoc in Indiana change what happens next,” Clinton said. I went to lunch with my editor. After the waiter announced the specials, he pointed to a tent card on the table. It…
Could 2005 be the tipping point for Indiana to become the center for entrepreneurship in the world? That is a pretty bold statement, considering Indiana’s poor track record. As executive director for Entrepreneur’s Alliance of Indiana, I talk with many entrepreneurs that are excited about the direction Indiana is headed. We have in place a strong educational component with several universities ded icated to research and development and the incubation of new ideas. Geographically we have always had an advantage,…
In the Jan. 3 issue of The New Yorker, writer Malcolm Gladwell reviews Pulitzer Prize-winner Jared Diamond’s new book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” Diamond’s premise, says Gladwell, “stands in sharp contrast to the conventional explanations for a society’s collapse.” While conventional wisdom has it that “civilizations are destroyed by forces outside their control, by acts of God,” Gladwell writes, “the lesson of ‘Collapse’ is that societies, as often as not, aren’t murdered. They commit suicide: they…
The nation’s largest parking operator is complaining that Indianapolis International Airport canceled its joint-venture contract and handed the business to the local half of the venture without seeking competing proposals. Nashville, Tenn.-based Central Parking Corp. said that, given the chance, it would have offered the airport more to manage the Premier Business Class parking lot than its now-former partner, Global Parking System of Carmel, did. A counteroffer from Central came after the Indianapolis Airport A u t h o r…
Dr. Pierre Tran, a former neuroscience researcher at Eli Lilly and Co., was lured from Indianapolis to a suburb of San Francisco recently by a small biotech firm and its ability to develop new drugs more quickly than pharmaceutical giants like Lilly. The region’s diversity and “food culture” also played a role, Tran told the San Francisco Business Times in a story about where the Bay Area finds all the brainpower it needs to fuel its tech culture. Tran went…
It’s good to have job growth in the U.S. economy once again, even if the monthly gains in employment reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics occasionally fall short of some analysts’ expectations. After a long spell of minuscule job growth in the wake of a painful recession, we’ve grown used to disappointing announcements from the federal statistical agency responsible for tracking the labor market. But the recent report on the employment situation in December caps a year-long streak of…
Indiana’s new governor will obviously have the opportunity to shape a new government and plans to do so. But what has been unsaid about what the new structure may look like is how our assumptions about government and the delivery of government services have changed so radically since the last party change in the office in 1988, and even since the last election. The growth of the Internet and public acceptance of doing business online has Hoosiers now expecting that…
At least until mid-December, we thought we had a tentative handle on the General Assembly’s focus for the 2005 session. We knew the new governor and the new Republican House majority would team up on economic development initiatives, improving governmental efficiency and restructuring state agencies. The biggest task would be crafting a realistic state budget in the face of adversity and uncertainty. The regular “stuff of government” would also be squeezed in and some thorny telecommunications issues would be raised,…
When Maureen Ferguson was a lobbyist for the Indiana Petroleum Council, she went skiing for the first time, in Colorado. As her ski instructor was taking her up the mountain, he asked her what she did for a living. When she told him, he “went off” on how the oil industry was corrupt and running the government, and she recalled that she found herself fearing for her life. Now when someone asks Ferguson what she does, sometimes she tells them,…
Aging medical bills that fell off the radar screen, unused bank accounts that were never closed and continue to rack up monthly fees, or an erroneous charge placed on the report by mistake all can wreak havoc on consumers’ plans. Beginning in March, however, a law signed by President Bush in December 2003 will make it easier for Indiana residents to keep closer tabs on those credit reports and head off troubles at the pass. The Fair and Accurate Credit…
GERALD BEPKO Commentary State should help insurance industry grow Everyone seems to agree that state governments must facilitate job growth and wealth creation. As pioneers in publicprivate partnerships, Indiana’s leaders have envisioned a future for Indiana that includes many partnership economi c – d eve l o p m e n t strategies. One reflection of this vision is the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership-led focus on key sectors, such as advanced manufacturing, logistics and life sciences. The priority associated with…
