On April 19, area Leagues hosted the final 2025 Legislative Update. All state legislators representing Bartholomew, Brown, Johnson, and Monroe counties were invited to report on the Indiana General Assembly and take questions from attendees. Senator Shelli Yoder and Representative Matt Pierce accepted the invitation. Sonia Leerkamp, vice president of the Brown County League, moderated and forty people attended.
Representative Pierce noted that the budget forecast shows a deficit of more than $2 billion. Recent dramatic changes in national economics, coupled with the state’s fiscal policies in the past few years, are creating problems that cannot be solved by budget cutting. Pierce predicted that the burden will fall on local government and schools. He also noted that Monroe County will lose one of its judges; utilities will be able to pass on to rate-payers the costs of investigating small nuclear reactors, and student IDs will no longer be valid forms of voter identification.
Senator Yoder echoed concerns about the budget shortfall. Provisions for schools’ curricular materials were not fully funded in the last budget; voter complaints about this led state leadership to remove that budget line, folding curricular support into general school funding and then decreasing the amount. Yoder is also concerned about reduced funding for reproductive health, Medicaid, and hospitals in rural parts of the state.
See
Legislative Updates from the Indiana Statehouse for recordings of all 2025 legislative updates.