Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann was the keynote speaker for the annual Kosciusko County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner Wednesday in Warsaw. The largest crowd for the dinner, approximately 125, heard Ellspermann recap the recent legislative session and what the state GOP needs to embrace.

“We had a very good session,” she stated, adding legislators did what Indiana does and the Republican party has done in Indiana for more than 10 years: be fiscally sound, have a balanced budget with almost $2 million in reserve, “doing the things, running the state like a business, making sure that we are able to pay our bills, be where we wanted to be.”

She noted nearly $500,000,000 was budgeted for K-12 education making sure children have the best opportunities, added $200 million to the major moves fund for infrastructure improvement and reducing the state’s overall debt. She spoke of the $84 million funded for regional cities initiative, explaining “Regional cities is a collaboration … it’s the rural parts that really work with the cities in the center … playing together, collaborating, developing a shared vision and going after that.”

Additional tourism dollars was also mentioned. Last year’s tourism campaign, taking on a market in St. Louis, saw a $5 return of state tax dollars for every $1 invested. The campaign will move on to Grand Rapids, Dayton and eventually into Chicago.

“I want to leave you with one other thing that I’m proud of in this general assembly,” stated Ellspermann. “We’ve lived with a balanced budget, it seems like forever, we don’t have anything in our constitution that requires us to have a balanced budget. So this year we started that process … for beginning the balanced budget amendment.”

The amendment will have an override authority of 75 percent by the general assembly. “We know in Indiana we value that, that’s important to our fiscal health.”

Looking over the 2 1/4 years, since Gov. Mike Pence and Ellspermann came into office, she stated Indiana’s economy is strong, the unemployment dropped more than 2 percent. “That’s a good a good indication that says we’re going to have opportunities for our children and our grandchildren in Indiana.”

She stated the state is again ranked No. 1 in the Midwest as the best place to do business, No. 6 in the nation and 10th for small businesses. The state also had 11 of the top 50 best communities chosen by Frontier. However there is a skills gap. She projected in the future about 65 percent of the workforce will need post secondary skills and the state is at about 34 percent. “Efforts are being made to make sure there is career counseling and experience available that students will need.”

The GOP

Ellspermann ended her address by challenging Republicans to expand the party. “We had kind of a rough spot in the statehouse … We have some things that may have put some blemishes on Republicans … will be things to overcome. …

“Ask you to think about how do we get there. We have to continue to expand our party. We need the diversity of perspective in our party, we need more women active in our party, we need minorities in our party, we need to be attractive to the young voters to be part of our party to be engaged … We have to go out and ask, we have to invite, we have to encourage, we have to support. we need them with us. …

“We have to be assertive. Our party really counts on that. We can’t afford a day sitting still, and assuming we’re going to win again …. we saw a month ago how easy it is to have something, one event, happen that brings you to your knees. We need to make sure we are prepared … do all we can do.  We’ve had such a good 10 years, let’s continue moving forward.

“Indiana really is a state that works, but it works because of people like you.”