The Indiana Publisher

Publisher The Indiana Volume 85, Issue 1 • January 2020 Published on second Thursday monthly The Indiana legislature's 2020 short session began Jan. 6 at the Statehouse. It's expected to end March 11. The HSPA Foundation is now accepting applications for its 2020 Legacy Scholarship program. There are two $1,000 awards available to any child or grand- child of an HSPA member news- paper employee or independent contractor. Committee Chair and Foundation Board Member. Mark Miller said the scholar- ships, "are aimed at benefiting the children and grandchildren of our industry's best assets: our employees ...". Student applicants can be pursuing any area of study at a college, university or vocational school. "We've become aware of some confusion regarding the Children, grandchildren of member newspaper employees, independent contractors are eligible $1,000 Legacy Scholarships available Hoosier State Press Associa- tion is fighting two bills that attack the concept of publication of public notices. H.B. 1310 would place a $300 cap on what a government unit could pay for the placement of a public notice in its local newspa- per. The bill was authored by Rep. David Wolkins, R-Warsaw. He's carrying the bill at the request of Rep. Wendy McNamara, R-Evansville. Steve Key, executive director and general counsel of HSPA, said the bill is a variation of language that was amended into S.B. 535 last year by Rep. Wolkins. That committee amendment had a $250 cap. It was removed from S.B. 535, authored by Sen. Phil Boots, R-Crawfordsville, because it was non-germane to the bill. Wolkins' bill has been assigned to the House Local Government Committee, chaired by Rep. Dennis Zent, R-Angola. Key and Steve Wolff of The Corydon Group, whom HSPA has hired for lobbying support in 2020, met with Wolkins last week. After walking through the ramifications of the bill, Wolkins indicated he would abide by Rep. Zent's decision on the fate of the bill. If Zent declined to hear the bill, Wolkins would not fight that decision. If Zent decided to give the bill a hearing, Wolkins said he would offer a major amendment, but didn't provide information as to what those changes would be. Key was able to reach Zent later in the week. Zent said he would not give H.B. 1310 a hearing in his Local Government Committee. Without a hearing, the bill will die. HSPA also is working on H.B. 1003, an education matters bill authored by Rep. Jordan, R-Bremen. As introduced, H.B. 1003 includes a provision to elimi- nate the publication requirement for the annual school performance report. Rather than publish the performance reports in local news- papers, the school districts would only be required to report the information to the Indiana Department of Education. Rep. Jordan calls H.B. 1003 the "School Freedom Bill" because it gives the school districts flexibility in dealing with Legislative Update HSPA fighting two anti-public notice bills When then-President George W. Bush visited Indiana, he specifically lauded the published report as an example of a good accountability tool for education. See Legacy, page 2 See Pages 12-14 for this year's application. Deadline is March 13. See Update, page 10

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