House Speaker Brian Bosma says his one disappointment from the 2015 legislative session is a failure to boost infrastructure funding as much as he’d like.
Lawmakers increased infrastructure funding by more than two hundred million dollars in the 2013 budget to take care of state and local roads. And those levels remained the same but didn’t increase in the budget approved last week.
Senate President Pro Tem David Long says lawmakers had to make some tough budget decisions.
“We wanted to get our outcomes up to about a 12 percent surplus. We’re just below that, 11.8, which meets Moody’s and S&P’s rules, pretty much, for keeping our triple-A credit rating – and that’s important,” Long says.
The General Assembly will receive an extensive report this summer from INDOT about future road funding sources and needs.
But House Minority Leader Scott Pelath says the state needs more than that.
“That’s a matter that is going to take executive leadership to solve because we need the bully pulpit to make the case to the people of Indiana that we need to tackle our infrastructure woes directly,” Pelath says.
Bosma says he anticipates making infrastructure a primary focus the next two sessions.
