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Gov. Holcomb orders special legislative session

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — For the first time in more than a decade, Indiana lawmakers will be called back to Indianapolis for a special legislative session.

Gov. Eric Holcomb made the announcement Monday morning at his residence.

Holcomb said 2002 was the last time a special session was called in a year that didn’t involve passing a budget.

Last week, several bills still hadn’t been addressed sufficiently when state lawmakers in the Indiana General Assembly ran out of time. Some of those bills were part of Holcomb’s legislative agenda.

When asked why he thought lawmakers couldn’t agree and ran out of time, Holcomb said, “Well, your guess is as good as mine. As many of you know, I’m not going to be tempted by blame-storming. I’m going to brainstorm about the future and how we get this done.”

That future now includes Holcomb calling lawmakers back to Indianapolis for a special session to “put time back on the clock.” He’s asking lawmakers to focus on five areas that include school security, school funding and federal tax compliance issues.

Gov. Holcomb explained “Muncie Community Schools is in dire need of a $12 million loan to ensure they can continue to operate and make some other capital improvements.”

“We said from the beginning that if he were to call a special session, we’d definitely be interested in that,” said Adam Baker, spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Education.

“School safety, you saw that, was number one. His number one thing is making sure schools have the had the money they had,” Baker said.

House and Senate Republicans praised Monday’s announcement.

Senate President Pro Tem David Long, a Republican from Fort Wayne, released the following statement on Monday:

As I have said before, the decision to call a special session is one only the governor can make. Gov. Holcomb has determined, after thoughtful deliberation, that there are items that require action by the legislature. The Senate will support his decision and work diligently to complete the tasks he sets out for us. We will be efficient and focused, and are committed to collaborating with our colleagues in the House and with the governor to act in the best interest of Hoosiers.”

Speaker of the House Brian Bosma, also a Republican, released this statement:

I concur with the governor’s assessment that several critical issues require further legislative action. This special session will be limited to those important issues which remained on the table at the close of the regular session. We will continue to work closely with the governor and our Senate colleagues, and we are committed to keeping this session extremely focused and efficient in terms of scope and time.”

But Senate Democrats slammed the decision, highly critical that the Department of Child Services isn’t on the list.

House Minority Leader Terry Goodin released a statement Monday saying:

The only reason we are even talking about a special session now is because of the mismanagement demonstrated by those in charge of the Legislature. They are in charge of every aspect of the legislative process, but they could not handle their work in time, so the taxpayers will have to foot the bill for overtime this year. All along, Indiana House Democrats have said there is only one reason to have a special session this year: to fix the mess that is the Department of Child Services (DCS). It should be everyone’s priority to protect the lives of at-risk children. During the session, the Republicans chose to do nothing, hiding under the guise of waiting for a private consultant to tell us what we already know: there’s a lot that’s wrong with DCS. Even though the consultant already has found problems in both staffing and computerization at DCS that should be addressed, we are told that we should wait to do anything until next year. So the needs of at-risk children will be set aside…again. The school safety concerns addressed by the governor can be handled administratively. Nothing on an agenda for a special session should be more important than saving lives of children. Nothing. The governor’s priorities now seem to include covering the butts of Republican legislative leaders for the sorry way the regular session ended last week. What a shame.”

Holcomb said he thinks the special session could be as short as a few days.

One of his spokespeople said a special session could cost taxpayers roughly $30,000 a day from a designated fund.