Poll: Support for sales tax hike if property tax drops
INDIANAPOLIS — The majority of Indiana residents support raising the sales tax if it means a decrease in their property taxes, a new statewide poll found.
State lawmakers are considering several options for reducing the state’s reliance on property taxes — including a higher sales tax — but some legislators worry that the public would not support a tax increase of any kind.
However, The Indianapolis Star-WTHR poll published Monday found that 62 percent of adults in the state are willing to pay more sales taxes, while 27 percent oppose a higher sales tax rate and 11 percent are undecided.
The poll of 600 adults also found that Hoosiers are more divided on a proposal to raise the income tax to offset property taxes. About 45 percent said they are willing to pay a higher income tax rate, while 42 percent oppose an increase in the income tax.
State posts online applications ahead of media blitz
INDIANAPOLIS — Low-income adults without health insurance but access to the Internet can download applications for the new Healthy Indiana Plan due to begin Jan. 1.
The Family and Social Services Administration, which posted the application form Monday on the program’s Web site, www.in.gov/fssa/hip, estimates more than 550,000 people are eligible and it will enroll up to 130,000 in the program approved this year by the General Assembly.
Beginning next Monday, FSSA also will make applications available at its local Division of Family Resources offices, at Hoosier Healthwise enrollment centers and at some private social service providers.
The state is making the plan available to uninsured adults ages 18-64 in households earning up to twice the federal poverty level, a sliding scale that varies from $20,420 for a single individual to $41,300 for a family of four.
Ineligible are people whose employers offer health insurance, whether they’re enrolled in those plans or not.
FSSA will begin accepting the completed applications on Dec. 17.
Carson, ill with cancer, won’t seek re-election
INDIANAPOLIS — After persevering through years of health problems, Democratic U.S. Rep. Julia Carson has decided that this will be her last term in Congress following a diagnosis that she has terminal lung cancer.
Carson, who grew up in poverty and attended an all-black Indianapolis high school, will not run next year for a seventh term representing the city.
The decision was bittersweet, Carson said in a statement released Monday, because she will miss her friends in Washington but can engage in other personal interests at home.
“It will be a time to weep and a time to laugh — it will also be a time to heal,” she said.
Carson, 69, has been away from Washington since she was admitted Sept. 21 to an Indianapolis hospital for about a week. Her office said she had a deep infection in her leg, near a spot where a vein was removed in January 1997 when she underwent double heart bypass surgery just weeks after she was first elected to Congress.
Carson’s chief of staff, Len Sistek, said Carson wanted to complete her current two-year term, which runs through 2008.
State News
10:39 p.m.: Indiana state briefs
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Hundreds pay respects to slain Indiana soldier
Hundreds of people turned out for the funeral of a northeastern Indiana soldier who was killed by enemy rocket fire in Afghanistan.
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Allisonville Road bridge project in Indianapolis begins Wednesday
The already rough commute on the Northeastside of Indianapolis will only get longer this summer.
To complete a $19 million road improvement as quickly as possible, state highway officials Wednesday will close the Allisonville Road bridge over I-465 for up to 110 days.
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Delaware County grandstand likely done by July
Delaware County says the show will go on this summer with new fair grandstand after it demolished the old one because of safety concerns found during an inspection prompted by the deadly Indiana State Fair stage collapse.
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Fort Wayne officials give tax breaks another look
Officials in a northeastern Indiana city are taking another look at their policy on property tax abatement, which critics consider too generous but supporters contend is needed to attract businesses.
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Police probe similarities in missing IU student
Police in Bloomington say they have contacted authorities in Louisiana about their search for a college student whose disappearance has similarities to that of an Indiana University student who has been missing for nearly a year.
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Census: Hispanics boosting Indiana's small towns
Hispanics are fueling population growths in many small Indiana towns that are seeing their white populations shrink, census figures show.
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Indy 500 in the books, but heat isn't a record
Fans sought shade under the grandstands and beneath umbrellas. Misting stations got a healthy workout. But Sunday's Indianapolis 500 won't go down in the record books as the hottest in the 101-year history of the race.
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Rose-Hulman renames center for late president
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is renaming its Student Innovation Center after late President Matt Branam.
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Ohio casinos will cut into nearby states' winnings
The opening of casinos in Ohio this spring means the luck is running out for neighboring states that have pulled in an estimated $1 billion each year from gamblers who've been crossing the border to wager at riverboats in Indiana, gaming tables in Michigan and casinos in western Pennsylvania.
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Dry spring causing concern for holiday weekend
An abnormally dry spring has farmers worried about crops and the Indiana fire marshal concerned about fireworks, cookout and bonfires sparking fires during the Memorial Day weekend.
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Hundreds pay respects to slain Indiana soldier
