Feb. 6—A standing room only audience showed up Saturday morning to talk with Sen. Stacey Donato, District 18, and Rep. Ethan Manning, District 23, during a Third House Meeting hosted by the Logansport/ Cass County Chamber of Commerce on Saturday.

Rep. Heath VanNatter of District 38, R-Kokomo, was scheduled to attend but had a conflicting event in Tippecanoe County.

During the two hour session, Donato, R-Logansport, and Manning, R-Logansport, discussed what they had been working on during the current legislative session and also took many questions from those in attendance.

General concerns from local voters included the LEAP water project and changes to voting.

Conversation stayed mostly civil throughout the meeting.

The 2024 legislative session is a short session and discussions are limited to issues that do not have a fiscal impact.

Manning was the first to speak and said that House Republicans had focused on four particular bills during the session: creating apprenticeship programs for young people (HB 1001), a nationally recognized definition of antisemitism (HB-1002), to help citizens and organizations when going against a state agency (HB 1003) and to give pensioners a 13th check (HB 1004).

A bill that would have eliminated additional J-turns (HB 1129) had failed to get a hearing, he said. Another bill that Manning was passionate about and that would have been beneficial to Cass, Pulaski and Fulton Counties hospitals was HB 1196, which had also failed.

However, the most important part of that bill had been added to a bill that is still alive, HB 1121, a bill that is a hodge-podge of items from across the state.

HB 1196 only applied to counties with populations of 50,000 of less, Manning said. One of its key aspects which was carried over is that the bill would allow a county council to devote public safety funds and local income tax dollars to a county owned hospital.

“So that would help Logansport if our county officials would choose to do that,” he said. “They could use it for capital upgrades, technology upgrades or operation expenses (on Logansport Memorial Hospital). It’s meant to be a local option and very flexible so the county and the hospital could work together to determine what is best if the county has any desire to do that.”

In order for a non-county hospital, such as IU Health, to receive such funding they would have to meet at least four requirements, which included operating a full-time emergency room, EMS, OBD and primary care.

“My concern is we see a lot of hospitals in rural communities that have been purchased by big systems,” said Manning. “They continue to pull services out of rural communities. My thinking is if you are going to give local dollars to a hospital in the community, if it’s owned by someone else. you shouldn’t be giving them money unless they are offering basic health care services to the community.”

Manning said the state needed to work to define what the minimal basic acceptable services for healthcare in community is.

SB 50, a bill from Donato, had received attention across the state and the senator clarified what the bill does. SB 50 allows Indiana schools the option to hire religious leaders to assist school counselors. Donato said the bill defines the requirements such a faith leader must have, which includes a masters in divinity or religious studies or equal, two years of counseling experience and the same protocol all school employees go through such as a background check. Donato said the bill was meant to assist current school counselors who are overwhelmed by their workload.

Donato also said the education requirements chosen would mean that any clergy member hired to such a position would have studied other religions such as Islam and Buddhism.

Another bill Donato was focused on included SB 185, which would keep cell phones from being used in classrooms during instruction (unless the student needs it as part of an Individualized Education Program or a learning disability).

SB 282 looked to improve truancy issues in Indiana schools. Donato said that one in five students are truant in Indiana with some schools having a truancy rate of 45 percent. The bill read that if a student is truant at least 10 days, then they can be referred to counseling or intervention.

When it came to questions from those in attendance, the first focused on the LEAP project. LEAP is a potential pipeline that could move billions of gallons of water from Tippecanoe County to Lebanon in Boone County. The water is needed for development plans that would support high-tech industries. Boone County currently does not have enough water needed to sustain high-tech industry.

“A key to remember is, they cannot build a pipeline or do anything like large water withdrawal without legislative action and that is not happening this year,” Manning said.

Manning wants to see the Indiana Finance Authority to oversee the study on the project instead of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation.

“Nothing is going to happen this year,” he said. “We don’t have the funding for it. We don’t know what the water would be, how long the pipeline would be, how much would be withdrawn and the cost of any of it.”

An entire list of house and senate bills are listed on iga.in.gov/legislative/2024/bills. Bills that are highlighted in gray are dead for this legislation year. Bills highlighted in blue are still being considered.

Manning said that generally only 20 percent of bills pass during a session.