Indiana lawmakers are dialing back the push to eliminate dozens of state boards, including the proposed abolishment of the Natural Resources Commission.
Changes made to House Bill 1003 by an Indiana Senate committee on Wednesday also delay the elimination or merger of most of the effective boards by six months until July 1, 2027. It also reestablishes a board overseeing the state’s workforce training programs that legislators dissolved last year.
Republican legislators made the bill a top priority for this legislative session, arguing that many of the state’s more than 250 boards and commissions were rarely meeting and were unproductive.
Many outdoors and environmental groups argued that was not the case with the Natural Resources Commission and appealed for lawmakers to leave it in place.
The 12-member board, which dates to 1965, oversees state environmental and land-use policies across topics such as establishing hunting seasons, increasing park fees and addressing riverboat speed limits. The original bill called for shifting those functions to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
Objections draw response
Bill sponsor Sen. Randy Maxwell, R-Guilford, said keeping the Natural Resources Commission was in response to public concerns.
“My district is full of sportsmen,” Maxwell told the Capital Chronicle. “So when you start to hear from the turkey federation, these people about, ‘hey, this is bad. This is bad.’ We probably ought to listen, so we put it back in.”
The changes endorsed Wednesday, however, alter the makeup of the commission by eliminating a clause that no more than three of the six citizen members appointed by the governor be of the same political party. Those appointees also will no longer be required to have experience or education on the environment or conservation.
Maxwell said that was a change sought by Gov. Mike Braun’s office.
“That was our compromise with the executive branch and with the House, because they wanted to eliminate it all together,” Maxwell said.
One-year delay adopted
The bill version approved by the House earlier this month proposed the repeal, merger or restructuring of 63 boards, commissions, committees and councils at the end of this year.
Changes made by the Senate Rules Committee delays nearly all those actions until the summer of 2027. And it reduced the bill from more than 450 pages to 323.
Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, the committee’s chair, said that delay until after next year’s legislative session “gives the luxury of a little bit more time before these end.”
“If there’s a challenge that we haven’t picked up here that we’ll have another session in which to address those challenges that might come,” Bray said.
The committee endorsed the bill in an 11-0 vote, sending it to the full Senate for action.
Adam Battalio, a senior policy advisor to Braun, spoke in favor of the bill as a step in a lengthy policy to improve efficiency.
Battalio acknowledged that the state did not have a good handle on the cost from the lengthy roster of boards and commissions.
“The savings on this are secondary to the improvements in accessibility, navigability, transparency,” he said. “These efficiencies are worth their own value.”
Workforce board restoration
While mostly aimed at eliminating boards, the changes included restoring the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet made up of at least 31 members.
Braun issued an executive order in December to reinstate the board that his office said was needed to comply with federal law on the implementation of state and federal workforce initiatives.
The workforce board was enacted in 2018 at the request of then-Gov. Eric Holcomb, but the state budget bill approved by legislators last year repealed the board from state law as of July 1 and transferred its activities to the state Department of Workforce Development.
“We had to keep that in place to get some federal funding,” Maxwell said.
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
