Protecting pregnant women and more good news in the revenue forecast It has been another productive week at the Statehouse as we are working diligently to finish up all of our work before session ends at the end of this month. Great progress is being made, and we are hopeful that we will be able to get everything done on time without the need for an expensive special session. On Friday, we passed a Senate Bill that I am sponsoring which expands current law to allow for oral consent for HIV testing of pregnant women. This is important because it removes a current barrier in our laws that only allow written consent for HIV testing and makes testing and treatment for HIV much easier for women, doctors and hospitals. As hard as it is to believe, there are only three weeks left of session. Next week will be the last week for House committee meetings, so any Senate Bills that are to be passed this session must clear committees next week. Over the course of the last three weeks, we will finish discussing Senate Bills and hold conference committees for bills that have been amended outside of the house they originated in such as a House Bill that was amended while it was in the Senate. These conference committees are made up of legislators from both the House and the Senate so that agreements may be worked out on these bills that were amended. If an agreement is made, the bill is sent back to the chamber it started in for approval by its members; if no agreement can be made before the end of session, the bill will die. It will certainly be a busy three weeks as we work out all of the details for these various bills. On another note, the State Budget Agency released the monthly revenue report for March earlier this week, and it shows very positive progress in our state's economic recovery. Revenues for March were $32 million above the updated revenue forecast from this past December and were $69 million higher than collections for the same period last year. Overall, the state general fund revenues are ahead of the updated forecast by $115 million. Sales tax collections have now increased on a year over year basis for thirteen straight months with an average five percent growth for the first nine months of the current fiscal year. Individual income tax collections for the first nine months of our current fiscal year are 16 percent higher than last year. This is a great development for our state. Our revenues have still not caught up to the original forecast released in May 2009 when our current budget was set, but we are not nearly as far behind as we were last year. Our state is slowly but surely making great progress towards recovering from the economic recession, which means more jobs for struggling Hoosiers. Thank you for your continued feedback this session. I always appreciate hearing from you and I hope you have a wonderful week. -30- State Rep. Suzanne Crouch (R-Evansville) |
