Indiana continuously ranks as the best place to start a business, number one for infrastructure in the nation, and has broken records for capital investment year after year since 2017.
“People around the world recognize Indiana as a good place to be and a good place to do business,” said Rodric Bray, State Senator for District 37, which covers most of Morgan County. “Good things are happening in Indiana. I like to think some of that is due to the Indiana General Assembly because we set the laws and a lot of the policies. There are lots of things we can do better but Indiana has a fantastic story to tell and I’m super proud of that.”
Bray, of Martinsville, is concluding his third term as a State Senator and is running for a fourth term this year. He practices law at Bray, Bray & Bray in Martinsville, but ever since he was appointed President Pro Tempore for the State Senate in 2018, he said he has dedicated most of his time to filling that role. When he’s not working in law or legislature, he enjoys spending time with his wife, Kelly, and two sons. The family also has a small farm property in Mooresville where Bray said he enjoys working with their twenty-five cows.
2024 PRIORITIES: LITERACY AND DAYCARE
The State Senate passed a handful of bills this 2023 season including for improving reading proficiency at the elementary school level and finding ways to make daycare more accessible and affordable for all families.
Senate Bill 1 addresses the fact that approximately 20% of third graders aren’t passing the iRead standardized reading assessment.
“iRead is not the crème de la crème of reading for a third grader,” Bray said. “In fact, it tests at a second-grade level. It’s very basic so if you have 20% of kids that aren’t passing that, it’s a red flag. We need to do better, and we can do better. The idea is that kids learn to read up until third grade and beyond third grade they read to learn. If they don’t have that, they can never catch up. So, we put together a bill that puts as many wrap-around services as we can around those kids, trying to prioritize making sure they can read proficiently by the time they’re in third grade and tries to get them all sorts of help if they can’t.”
Indiana Senate Bill 2 addresses daycare. Indiana families are struggling to find a daycare and when they do, they often can’t afford it.
“We are partly to blame in the general assembly I’d say because over time we’ve tried to regulate an increase in safety and quality of daycare,” Bray said. “It’s a simple economic piece. If you increase the safety and quality, you increase the cost and make it a little harder to enter into that space. We’re trying to find that right balance between safety and quality which we all want but not so much so that families can’t afford it or find it.”
PLANNING FOR THE 2025 BUDGET YEAR
As President Pro Tem, Bray is on a legislative council committee that hears proposals for summer study committee topics and decides which ones will be chosen. This year’s committees encompass everything from road funding and healthcare costs to tax structure.
The State Senate passes a budget every other yearly session. 2025 will be a budget season. Bray said Indiana is known for being prudent with state dollars and passing an accurately balanced budget. The Indiana General Assembly has done so while cutting or eliminating 15 taxes over the last 10 years. They don’t intend to stop there.
One group deemed the local tax reform committee, has taken a two-year look at the tax structure in Indiana. Indiana ranks in the top 10 in the nation for best tax environments, but Bray said they realize that if they stand still, other states will begin passing them by.
“You need a tax structure that funds the responsibilities of the state government but isn’t so onerous that it’s hard on families and businesses to do business,” he said. “So we’re taking a deep look at whether or not we can change or reduce taxes of any sort. The hope is that work will be done by the end of the year and by the 2025 budget session we can make some sort of substantive change.
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