These standing positions complement the Indy Chamber’s annual legislative priorities and reflect long-term principles that strengthen the Indy region’s people, places, and businesses.  

They outline the durable framework for sustained economic growth and competitiveness under the Accelerate Indy 2030 imperatives:  

I. Grow Our Economy: Local Growth, Infrastructure & Environment  

Outcome: Build a resilient, innovative, and opportunity-rich economy by empowering local governments, modernizing infrastructure, and leading on energy and sustainability.  

Local Growth & Innovation  

• Public Safety: Advance reforms that reduce recidivism, strengthen rehabilitation, and ensure law enforcement officer well-being and accountability. Continue to enhance the Marion County Crime Reduction Board’s ability to effectively collaborate and share resources across agencies, alongside group violence reduction models like Indy 360.  

• Homelessness: Advance a state–local partnership to eliminate unsheltered homelessness, through a framework that combines humane enforcement with supportive housing, treatment, and shelter capacity. Continue support for the Indianapolis Low Barrier Shelter and Streets to Home Indy.  

• Downtown West Innovation District: Develop a vision, feasibility analysis, and master plan for linking Indiana’s leading life sciences innovation anchors in Downtown Indianapolis through tax increment financing, infrastructure redesign, and mixed-use development.   

• Home Rule & Tax Climate: Expand local flexibility over fiscal decisions while maintaining a stable, competitive tax structure that supports investment and quality of life.  

• Local Investment Tools: Preserve and modernize TIF, including permanent authorization for Residential TIF, to drive redevelopment, housing, and infrastructure growth.  

• Fiscal Stability: Align local income tax reserve requirements with state standards to free up resources for local priorities while maintaining predictability.  

• Redevelopment & Reuse: Expand brownfield redevelopment through enhanced IFA funding, site-assessment grants, and employment-linked tax incentives. Establish a statewide demolition fund to prepare blighted sites for reuse.  

• Innovation & Capital Access: Preserve R&D, Hoosier Business Investment, and Venture Capital tax credits. Expand equitable access to capital for entrepreneurs of color and scale efforts to translate university-driven research into commercially deployed solutions.  

• Government Efficiency: Support township consolidation, operational efficiencies, and comprehensive reforms to improve transparency, optimize service delivery, and modernize local government.  

• Elections & Civic Participation: Modernize election systems for efficiency and access; authorize no-fault absentee or vote-by-mail for all registered voters.  

Transportation & Mobility  

• Indianapolis Inner Loop Redesign: Rebuild the Inner Loop as a recessed corridor to reconnect neighborhoods, unlock redevelopment, and strengthen the capital’s competitiveness.  

• Transit & Rail Connectivity: Protect local transit funding and expand intercity passenger rail between Indianapolis, Chicago/NWI, and Louisville to drive commerce and talent mobility.  

• Next-Generation Mobility: Establish clear, predictable rules for autonomous vehicles, ride-share mobility services (e.g. Waymo), and unattended ride-share vehicles to foster innovation, while addressing public safety, traffic circulation, vehicle storage, and liability.  

• Complete Streets & Active Networks: Adopt multimodal design standards that improve safety for all users, expand greenways, and promote active transportation through sustained Next Level Trails funding.  

• Employer Mobility Incentives: Offer employer incentives for transit passes, cycling infrastructure, and commuting benefits that support workforce health and sustainability.  

Infrastructure, Housing & Environment  

• Attainable Housing & Homeownership: Expand the housing supply, incentivize homeownership through low-interest financing and home repair programs, and reduce evictions through mediation and legal aid. Continue to enhance and expand the state’s residential infrastructure loan fund to support increased housing supply.  

• Energy Policy: Position Indiana as a net exporter of affordable, reliable, and clean energy through leadership in nuclear innovation, grid modernization, and next-generation storage. Energy policy should move at the speed of economic development while balancing affordability and environmental sustainability.  

• Efficiency Inducements: Incentivize businesses and local governments to invest in energy-efficient retrofits and fleet upgrades to lower costs and emissions.  

• Water Management & Development: Create state and local coordinating bodies for sustainable water management and prioritize redevelopment along waterways that pairs economic opportunity with environmental stewardship.  

II. Build Our Talent: Education, Workforce & Health  

Outcome: Develop, attract, and retain a world-class workforce by ensuring access to high-quality education, career pathways, and healthy, thriving communities.  

Education & Workforce Development  

• Early Education & Childcare: Increase access to affordable, high-quality early learning through regulatory streamlining, tri-share models (cost sharing between government, employer, and family), and expanded pre-K vouchers.  

• Funding & Equity: Modernize school funding formulas to reflect poverty, childhood trauma, language barriers, and developmental challenges while ensuring fair resource allocation across districts.  

• District Collaboration: Through the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance encourage partnerships between IPS and public charters under shared governance and service frameworks to drive academic excellence and financial sustainability.  

• College, Career & Technical Readiness: Expand high-quality STEM education, align counseling and coursework with career pathways, and scale Indiana Career Apprenticeship Pathway (INCAP) Apprenticeship Programs for high school students and Career Programs for adults. Restore funding for workforce training grants.  

• Educator Empowerment: Provide districts flexibility to pay teachers based on high-need subject areas, extend school hours, and adopt alternative retirement options for new educators.  

• Postsecondary Access & Affordability: Support compliance with FAFSA completion requirement, scholarship access, and reciprocity of college credit to improve attainment.  

• Inclusive Workforce: Strengthen healthcare and veteran workforce pipelines, enact a state Work Share program, expand access to driving privileges for insured immigrants, and ensure anti-discrimination protections across employment and housing.  

Health & Wellbeing  

• State Health Goal: Make Indiana a top-ten healthiest state by aligning access, quality, affordability, and upstream investments in housing and prevention.  

• Value in Healthcare: Emphasize the connection between cost and outcomes, with healthy Hoosiers being the goal. Expand payment models that reward outcomes and affordability.  

• Public Health Investment: Restore and elevate funding for the Health First Indiana preventative public health program to help local health departments deliver data-driven, preventive programs.  

• Behavioral Health Infrastructure: Implement Behavioral Health Commission recommendations, expand 988 crisis response, and strengthen community mental-health centers.  

• Healthcare Workforce & Data Transparency: Support workforce recruitment and retention while improving the quality and accessibility of healthcare data to drive equitable outcomes.  

• Food Security: Support policies that expand access to nutritious foods and modernize SNAP for online ordering and delivery.  

III. Tell Indy’s Story: Identity, Collaboration & Trust  

Outcome: Elevate the Indianapolis region’s national reputation as an innovative, inclusive, and high-quality place to live, work, and invest.  

Regional Brand & Storytelling  

• Partner with public, private, and civic organizations to tell a unified story of the Indy region’s innovation, quality of life, and collaborative spirit.  

• Ensure state participation in launching a national storytelling collaborative that leverages local voices, creative industries, and data-driven narratives to position Indy as a leading metro for talent and business.  

Civic Identity & Cultural Investment  

• Support arts, culture, and placemaking initiatives that attract residents, talent, and employers while strengthening regional pride and community cohesion.  

• Encourage public-private partnerships that align creative economy investments with workforce, tourism, and quality-of-life goals.  

Open Data & Regional Trust  

• Promote transparency and innovation through the state’s Management & Performance Hub and local Offices of Innovation.  

• Advance open-data initiatives that showcase progress in health, talent, and economic performance, reinforcing Indy’s identity as a results-driven, collaborative region.