Why are you seeking election?
I’m from Martinsville. Martinsville is a Superfund site. It has been polluted with PCE and TCE for 30 years. There’s been virtually no activity done on it, until four years ago I started Martinsville, Indiana Superfund Site Association, which is essentially a public forum looking at data on what is happening and what has been happening.
Why are you qualified for the position?
When I was at Rockwell Automation, I also sat on the Rockwell Corporate Environmental Council. What we would do, we would look at upcoming legislation, and how it would affect each facility. So, when you’re looking at developing legislation, particularly from an environmental point of view, I’ve written policies for how we’re going to implement that legislation. I also did budgets there as well. Plus, I’m on the board of trustees for the Scottish Society, and we put on the Highland Games. I also belong to Mensa and work with gifted kids.
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What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
I say there’s actually four. That would be jobs, health care, education and the environment. None of them are standalone issues. They are all dependent on each other. You have to look at some integrated form to make them work. If you look at them standalone, you’re going to spend too much money and have something that isn’t functioning.
When you look at jobs in Indiana, if you have an industry that comes in, they look at location and quality of life, and the environment affects that. They’re going to look at a healthy workforce, and they are going to look at a trained and educated workforce. So all these elements, they have to work together.
What are some of the biggest issues facing Indiana today?
The most immediate one is going to be our budget, and it happens to be a budget year. We talk about this big surplus we have. I know in Martinsville, for example, the income from service industries is at 46%, so that’s going to be pretty scattered across the state … We’re going to have budget shortfalls across the board, statewide and to a lot of cities. So, we’re going to make sure somehow the cities don’t go bankrupt.
Then, looking at what we’re going to do about education and teachers. Back in 2009, the budget took $300 million out of the schools budget. That’s never going to be put back in. We’ve already had a huge reduction in school spending, and if you were to factor in the alleged increases from that time until now, we’re actually spending less money today … A lot of money they did have they squandered to vouchers for charter schools.
And if we’re going to continue with E-learning, the western part of the district is very rural. If you have kids out there, there’s no broadband, there’s no internet. We do need to look at broadband access across the board. That also ties in with health care because so much health care is telemedicine these days.
Health care systems are looking to make more regional campuses and taking away satellite offices. There’s 40 counties in the state that have no hospitals. We have the same maternal mortality rate as Ethiopia. No matter what you think, we are still a rural state.
How do you plan to push legislation that addresses your priorities?
A lot of that will depend on who else is elected. There are a lot of people in the Senate now who have these concerns (about the environment of Superfund sites). I think the big thing is that people just don’t fully understand them, and there’s a huge educational element you have to go through first. Especially when you look at Superfund sites, who’s going to pay for it, who’s going to clean it up? … They think it’s normal. There’s this concept of normality that everyone has cancer, it’s nothing new, it’s just a way of life. No, it’s not.
But there are people there who we can work with and do it. You have to understand the process and what funding is available. There are job programs you can pull in. But still, the system is in place, but no one is using it.
How do you plan to help your district specifically and communicate with constituents about what is going on at the Statehouse?
The environmental stuff, I’ve been doing that for a long time. Everyone knows me because of that. I have an office downtown, everybody knows me. My family has been here for 200 years. So, talking to constituents will be pretty normal. The big issue is going to be that we are rural, and have been isolated, and people like the backwardness of it. But at the same time, the world is moving forward around us.
Thoughts on Indiana’s COVID-19 response, and what role do you think the General Assembly should play next year when passing pandemic-related legislation?
There’s been minimal response across the board. I know some counties are on the CARES funding, and there is funding for testing in the county. But some counties haven’t even implemented the testing program. So, there’s money for testing, there’s money for prevention, but the health departments aren’t using it because there are so many people that are still under this thing that they think it’s a hoax, or it’s no worse than the flu. There’s an educational element in there that just can’t be worked out. Fundamentally, we should be doing more testing at this point. We should be mandating to people that yes, you have to use these things.
Legislatively, the whole dynamic will be based on if we have an uptick in cases by the time we are in session. So, any response is probably going to be predicated by not on what’s already happened, but if we do have a drastic increase, it will be one of those responses about how we’ve got to put this fire out.
What is your position on public school funding? Should Indiana give more money to public schools, specifically raising teacher pay?
The very first thing is they’ve got to restructure the money they have and put it toward public education. Charter schools and voucher schools have proven to be a fatality in a lot of ways. The excess testing that keeps going on, I have yet to hear a teacher say they benefit from this.
Generally, teacher pay should be weighed on level of experience, or if someone has a specialty. This current rate for teacher pay from the American Federation of Teachers, we rank 50 out of 50 for teacher pay. One of the elements Indiana prides itself on is we have the greatest universities in the country … and yet, we have the lowest teacher pay rate in the country. We have over 1,000 teacher positions open that can’t be replaced. The teacher shortage is going to grow, and we have fewer people who want to become teachers.
Do you think it is beneficial or detrimental to decision-making that both chambers in the General Assembly have supermajorities?
You’re not getting an across the board representation of a lot of people. You have to realize too, that this also happens simply because people don’t vote. If more people voted, I think we wouldn’t have that.
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Name: Tom Wallace
Residence: Martinsville
Family: Not married; no children
Occupation: Environmental engineer
Educational background: Martinsville High School; studied anthropology at Indiana University
Political experience: Ran for mayor of Martinsville in 2019 and lost; chairman of Morgan County Democratic Party
Memberships: Mensa, Board of Trustees of the Scottish Society of Indianapolis, Indiana Nationalities Council, Scientech Club
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