With a couple weeks of no session, there was still quite a bit of good gossip, rumor and plain old fashion political innuendo running around town this past week.  So without further adieu…

• House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Crawford and Speaker Pat Bauer apparently aren’t on the best of speaking terms these days.  Crawford reportedly told Bauer the day of the budget vote that his caucus wasn’t going to vote for the budget unless the CIB and Gary were taken care.  The Speaker reportedly told Bauer to go ahead and blow up the budget, which later happened.   In addition the two are also split over Marion County’s three newest House members, Ed DeLaney, Mary Ann Sullivan and John Barnes.  Crawford wants them to get in line and quit pushing consolidation.  Bauer is looking more global because those three allow him to keep the majority in the House.  No word yet on whether the two have kissed and made up yet or ever will.

• The first bit of fallout from the ISTA controversy regarding its health insurance plan is surfacing.  The Washington Township School Board will vote Wednesday night to replace ISTA as its benefit provider with National Services of Wisconsin.

• Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels will unveil his plan for the Capital Improvement Board when he unveils the budget.   My sources say from what they can tell so far, the Governor’s plan is pretty flexible and give the City and CIB as many options as possible to close the $47 million operational shortfall.

• Speaking of CIB, Mayor Greg Ballard met with CCC Democrats to explain to them the issues regarding the CIB.  Only five Council members showed up, both Maherns, Joanne Sanders, Bill Oliver and Jose Evans.   The meeting was described as “informative” as the Mayor walked them through a 20+ page power point presentation.

• I’m hearing the big reason for the Mayor’s ex-offender job seminar falling flat this past week is because no one changed the date to avoid a conflict with the Indiana Fever job fair.  Greg Ballard reportedly was furious.

• Speaking of Ballard, he netted a few grand at a low key downtown fundraiser.

• Although Sherron Franklin stepped down from her post of overseeing the city’s abandoned homes project, officials are going to discover pretty quickly that the biggest problem with abandoned homes is finding out who holds the title and then locating them, particularly as they change from mortgage company to mortgage company.

• Mike Speedy seemed a bit surprised when 18 of his fellow City-County Councilors took issue with his dangerous dog ordinance.  Sources say he never sought out support from the rest of the Council.  Speedy reportedly wants to run for Mike Murphy’s Statehouse seat next year.

• In case you ever wanted what the anti-smoking playbook says about getting smoking ban ordinances pushed through city and state legislative bodies, here you go  Smoke Free Fundamentals.

• With a new baby on the way, Libertarian Party of Indiana Chairman Todd Singer is stepping down.  Replacing him is the more fiery Sam Goldstein.

• The race in the 5th Congressional District Republican primary could get real ugly.  According to sources, incumbent Dan Burton is looking forward to the upcoming primary fight and doesn’t think his opponents have to stomach for what lies ahead.

• Speaking of primaries, Evansville Mayor, and potential 20120 gubernatorial candidate, Jonathan Weinzapfel made a stop in Indianapolis Thursday.  He attended an NAACP/Labor lunch ceremony, two key constituent groups in any Democratic primary.

• The race to be the Democratic nominee for County Prosecutor continues to grow.   Attorney Terry Curry who ran in 2002 and lost in the primary to Tim Osbourn is apparently getting to run.  He practices criminal defense work.

• Republican State Representative Jackie Walorski is out of the running for Secretary of State, that leaves Charlie White as the sole GOP candidate.

• Republican State Senator Luke Kenley took a break from statehouse budget items and headed to Washington DC to meet with Indiana’s Congressional delegation.   Kenley was lobbying for changes in the way Indiana collects sales tax revenue over the Internet and making it more uniform with other states.

• Warren Township Trustee Jeff Bennett’s office is rewriting the rules on poor relief rules for more efficiency and uniformity.  It turns out when the township would add new rules for poor relief, it never took out the old rules or checked state law so there were numerous conflicts amongst the guidelines.

• And if you wondered what the tea party crowd was up to since the April 15 rally, they sat down this past week and chatted in downtown Indianapolis.   In the meeting were the Libertarian Party of Indiana, Republican Liberty Caucus, Indy Defenders of Liberty, Indiana Independence Caucus, Campaign For Liberty, Young Americans For Freedom, Indiana Republican Constitutional Caucus, 9-12 Movement, Committees of Safety.

That’s all folks.

The chief lobbyist for the Indiana State Teachers Association says it will go public in the next few days and disclose all the facts regarding investments which led to a $67 million debt in its medical and long term disability insurance fund and an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office.

Dan Clark told me tonight the only way the organization can mitigate the damages is to “be honest about the facts.”

Clark admits ISTA’s trust fund could be a target of the FBI and SOS investigations, but the authorities could also be investigating the brokerage firm which did the investments as well.  The Indiana Department of Insurance noted that ISTA had invested in high risk securities like real estate as opposed to more secure government bonds.  Clark says the health care funds managers have stepped down, former ISTA director Warren Williams retired and Robert Frankel, the insurance fund’s director,  has resigned.

Clark says ISTA will issue a comprehensive statement outlining the following…

• The transfer of its medical insurance fund to United Health Care.
• The transfer of its long-term disability insurance to another insurance company.
• A thorough review of its investment practices.
• Announce a solution to resolve its $67 million debt which include raising premiums, reducing expenses, liquidating assets.

By transferring the funds to private insurance carriers, Clark says current contracts with Indiana school districts won’t be impacted.

“We need to put all the cards on the table,”  Clark said.

Clark will appear on my morning radio show tomorrow at 735.  Tune into Newstalk 1430 AM, WXNT or newstalk1430.com.

I got a call this afternoon from the Indiana State Teachers Association’s lobbyist telling me there’s no investigation by the FBI into the Union’s finances and any claim of such is coming from a disgruntled former employee.

I still haven’t heard from ISTA’s spokesperson.  I’m working on some other things right now and will try to reconnect with these guys later today.   When I get something of substance, I will definitely post it here.

I put in a phone call to the Indiana State Teachers Association yesterday asking for a reaction to the state Department of Insurance order regarding the Union’s administration of its health insurance and long-term disability funds. 

Oddly enough, no one returned my phone calls.  So I figured the least I could do is let you read the order for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

ISTA Final Order

By the way, I’m hearing this morning that the FBI maybe looking at the ISTA over its accounting practices regarding its health insurance trust funds.  This is going to get interesting.

Okay, I will freely admit using a little hyperbole with the title, but it may not be as off base as you think.

An order filed by the Indiana Department of Insurance in Marion County Court regarding the Indiana State Teachers Association’s medical insurance program reveals some pretty questionable financial practices by the Union.  Ironically enough, it has nothing to do health insurance and everything to do with long-term disability insurance.

You see for the past few years ISTA and the Department have been going back and forth over whether the Union’s health insurance plan it offers school boards is subject to state regulation.  To make a long story short, it is.  However when state officials sent in a team to examine the books, what they found raised an eyebrow or two.

It turns out ISTA was co-mingling money taken from health insurance premiums and mixing it into a trust fund with premiums from long-term disability payments.  This is a legal practice, but not the best practice, if you know what I mean.

According to the order, ISTA had been making some risky investments in private equities like real estate (you see where this is going) instead government bonds.  And now ISTA’s liabilities in its health insurance trust fund exceed its assests by $67 million.  While the organization has the money for now, it could really put school organizations, i.e. taxpayers, on the hook down the road should the fund become totally insolvent because someone would have to pay the outstanding claims.

The order also states that when ISTA went to liquidate some of its private equity investments, it got less than half the value.  ISTA also had not provided any accounting information to support its December 31, 2008 financial statements.  ISTA’s independent auditors couldn’t deliver their opinion on the Union’s past fiscal year.  And internal financial statements and audit reports failed to include payments to school districts.

ISTA is getting out of the health insurance business, which by the way was on a collision course with financial trouble because it had taken in $76 million in premiums and paid out $64 million in medical claims and still had millions in unprocessed claims to go.  United Health Care is taking over the administration of medical benefits and ISTA must place nearly $5 million by Friday into a trust account to secure the cash necessary to facilitate the transaction.

If this isn’t the same kind of stuff that got AIG in trouble, I don’t know what is.  I’m going to try and track down the ISTA folks today.  Hopefully, there’s a reasonable explanation for all this.  Hopefully.

The good folks over at Smoke Free Indy have proved something I have maintained for quite a while, the current smoking ban, which was the result of a compromise, is working and smoking should still be allowed in bars and restaurants that don’t allow anyone under the age of 18.

According to a survey released today of more than 600 Marion County residents, nearly 70 percent would support an ordinance that bans smoking in all workplaces, but nearly 81 percent support the current anti-smoking ordinance that bans smoking in most public places, but exempts certain bars, restaurants and bowling alleys.

The poll also shows what is pretty much common sense; most people who work indoors work in a smoke-free environment and most people are aware of the dangers of secondhand smoke.

However, I think a fair interpretation of the poll is that most people think there should be places where adults can go and enjoy a perfectly legal product.  And that consumers, workers and businesses can all make the choice of whether to patronize or work in a smoking or non-smoking workplace.

You can download a copy of the Executive Report below. 

Smoke Free Indy Survey

And before I forget, you can forget about any smoking ban in Marion County.  The votes are not there, so any proposal won’t be surfacing any time soon.

Indiana lawmakers took their first step toward dealing with a potential $1 billion budget shortfall.  They agreed to work toward an agreement on how the process will work.

In a two-hour budget committee meeting that got testy for a bit, lawmakers and representatives from the Governor’s Office agreed to have their budget sub-committee use figures from both the Governor and the Legislature when crafting a new budget. 

Lawmakers also agreed to bring in two outside budget experts and have something to work with by their next meeting which is May 26. 

 With all this agreement, drawing up a document should be child’s play.  (Insert sarcasm here)

I had this e-mailed to me today.  It’s from a website called Bleacher Report.  It follows professional sports teams.  It could be nothing, but with the way things are in Indianapolis, every little bit of information that’s out there couldn’t hurt, right?

With $30 million down, state and local officials are looking to close a $17 million funding source gap for the Capital Improvement Board.  With things still fluid behind the scenes, no one was willing to go on the record, however talks have centered as of late on how to close $17 million of the $47 million gap.

All parties seem to agree on including the Marriott in the downtown sports district and increased taxes on tickets, hotel and motel rooms and rental vehicles.  However, that doesn’t quite close the deal.

Governor Mitch Daniels says he will unveil a proposal to address the CIB funding shortfall in the budget.  Details on that could be available later this week.

There is still discussion of using increased alcohol taxes to close the $17 million gap and adding table games at the Anderson and Shelby casinos to raise revenue as well.

One thing that seems pretty certain is that the Indianapolis Colts and Pacers won’t be contributing anything to help close the operational shortfall.

Say what you will about the politics, but he does a pretty good job.