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It does reduce funding for mental health drugs, which I think is a concern for people who
need maintenance drugs for their mental health situation. One of the things I really study
very hard in terms of any budget is its impact directly on Madison County, and I’m very
concerned in this budget that there is a reduction in the funding which we have provided for
the horse race industry. That is a growing industry not only in Indiana, but certainly
in Madison County and unfortunately in this proposed budget which we have before us right
now it cuts that subsidy by a good deal, $27 million. So, yes, that’s a concern. Now
the number 1 thing that I look for in any budget proposal is what is the impact for
public education within the district, and in this particular budget, I’m afraid there
is not very much good news for Madison County. Now, overall, because of some reduction in
revenues, and I’ll talk a little bit about that here, the budget proposes an overall
state decrease, you might say, in total dollars of about $5.6%, but some school districts
are impacted far more severely than that state average, for example, for the Alexandria community
school system, it looks like over 2 years they will see a budget decrease of over 7%.
For the Anderson Community Schools, they are looking at a budget decrease in terms of dollars,
as far as state support of 15.5%. The Elwood Community School sees a deduction in terms
of total dollars that they’ve received from the past budget of almost 15% and even the
Anderson Preparatory Academy in Anderson receives a budget decrease of close to 6.2%. Again,
that state average was 5.6%, so the funding for 4 most important school corporations in
my district are impacted far more than the state average. Now, some of the growing school
corporations, Frankton-Lapel and South Madison Community School, they do fair a little bit
better, but their per student proportion of funding is also reduced beyond the state levels.
So, I have a lot of concern with this budget as it is and generally I would say that my
concern is, a budget is a matter of priorities. We’re cutting education. We’re cutting
things that help create jobs. At the same time, there’s a proposal that we’ve had
in the Senate to cut taxes for corporations. I prefer that we do that at another time when
we can truly afford it, and perhaps not so severely cut education for the state of Indiana,
and certainly, not for the schools within my district.