By Noah Crenshaw and Elissa Maudlin | Daily Journal
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An Indianapolis Republican who’s been in office for nearly a year faces a challenge from a Greenwood-area Democrat.
Cyndi Carrasco, who was selected in a Republican caucus last October to replace the late Sen. Jack Sandlin, is seeking election to the office by the voters outright. Carrasco is running because she wants to continue to be a voice for public safety — which Sandlin was a champion of — while also being a voice for issues beyond, she said.
“My first job right out of law school was in government,” Carrasco said. “It was a dream job because I wanted to help people, and what better way to, what better job opportunity to be able to help people than government. So it did attract me to run for the Senate, the idea that I have the ability to have my government background inform what I could do in the Senate beyond just public safety.
Suzanne Fortenberry, a Democrat who works at FedEx and is the executive director of Greenwood Pride, is also seeking the Senate seat. Fortenberry was motivated to run in the aftermath of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, changing abortion access across the nation, she said.
“With the Dobbs decision, [it] really put the emphasis on how important it is for the statehouse to have people advocate for citizens,” Fortenberry said.
She’s also worked to address food insecurity in Johnson County, and quickly realized that “just helping families pay off school lunch debt wasn’t enough.” So she wanted to run for office to find out what the problems are, address them and look at individual challenges while advocating for working-class Hoosiers, she said.
District 36 encompasses most of Perry Township in Indianapolis, along with northwestern Pleasant and northeastern White River townships in Johnson County. Only residents living within those boundaries will get to vote in this race.
To help voters make their decision in this Senate race, the Daily Journal asked the candidates their takes on issues facing the state ahead of the Nov. 5 election and early voting.
Here’s a snapshot of what they said, edited for length, repetition and clarity:
Next year is a budget year. What should be prioritized?
Carrasco: Property taxes is No. 1. We have been going out and knocking on doors and talking to constituents across the entire district, and hands down, No. 1, what we’re talking about is property taxes and property tax relief — especially as it relates to seniors. We’re also talking about roads and road funding. That’s something that particularly is an issue for not just seniors, but really any demographic. People want to know why is it that central Indiana has not-so-great roads. What can we do about it? What are some possible solutions? And the discussion about electric vehicles and how they come into factor into the road funding formula. So those two things I know are going to be a big topic of conversation based on priorities that the constituents I’m talking to are telling me. Education is another one. The ability to have funding for all schools — publics, charters — and giving parents the choice to be able to have their kids in whatever school is going to allow their kids to thrive. Those three things are what I would hear consistently. I do think that another important topic of conversation as it relates to a budget here is health care. How we allocate health care? What’s been happening with the billion dollar [Medicaid] budget shortfall, and how do we thread the needle to make sure that we are ensuring that we’re spending within our means without sacrificing the services that people need?
Fortenberry: I am a firm believer in looking at everything as a whole to see what the issues are and see where the waste is. I’ve worked for FedEx for 26 years, and we have something called the 1/10/100 rule. So say, for example, you have a package going down the belt and you see that it’s open. You take a second, you tape up the package. It costs $1 [and] it’s fixed. If you let it go down the belt, the contents spill out. It takes a couple minutes to clean it up. It costs $10 to fix it. But if you don’t fix it, then it’s going to go down the belt, it’s going to tear up the gears, and it’ll cost $100 down the line. If we can look at what the problems are in our budget, and look at upstream, up the belt where the problem starts, and take care it where the monetary amount is smaller, it helps us in the long run as a state. This isn’t going to be fixed overnight, but if we can address the issues where they start, it will save us money in the long run, and we can’t afford more of these projects that we have going on. … We need to look at teachers and teachers pay. We need to have a living wage here. There’s no reason why a teacher in the area they teach in can’t afford a home there. So when you look at where the waste is, these road projects that lead out to the middle of nowhere, it’s a complete waste. If we put the money in our schools, we take care of our kids from the beginning, it gives them good jobs, better chance at a better education down the line, and then we have more money in the long run to cover whatever budget issues may come up. We have a surplus here in Indiana. The fact that we’re not using our surplus to take care of problems that are going to happen in five, 10, 15 years is putting everyone at risk.
Do you think Hoosiers need property tax relief?
Carrasco: I think so. I’ve been doing a lot of research into the topic just from an intellectual standpoint — statistics, how we’ve got here, property tax caps, the issues and the discussions that were being had back in [the 2000s], and what led us to where we are now. But again, I keep coming back to these conversations that I’ve been having with constituents, because I hear from people who had literally planned on their retirement, counting on some incremental increase right for property taxes, but they’re on fixed incomes. So when their assessed property values are increasing so exponentially, these are people who had very much never expected something like this, and they are trying to grapple with, “How do I stay in my home?” So when I hear those stories, and I see that it’s not just here in Senate District 36, but my colleagues in the Senate from across the entire state who are receiving these types of feedback from their constituents, there’s some real need for property tax adjustments.
Fortenberry: Obviously, I’m not in there to look at all the details, but I do think there should be a cap on property taxes. If you own your own home, if you have lived in your home for X number of years, you’ve paid off your home and you’re retired on a fixed income, you should have a cap on your property tax increase. After you sell your home or your kids inherit it, everything gets reassessed, and maybe some back taxes are owed. But no one should lose their home because they can’t afford taxes.
Can property tax relief be done without reducing tax dollars that fund local governments and schools?
Carrasco: My background as inspector general was about efficiencies, eliminating waste, right? So that’s just kind of where I go back to and I think about it’s not as simple as “How do we eliminate? How do we just reduce?” But the questions I’m asking are, “What are we spending our things on? How can we look at the things that our local governments are spending their dollars on, and is there a more efficient way to do it so that we can try to find some areas where we can reduce local spending without necessarily eliminating.” It’s maybe a level deeper than just simply, “Hey, let’s just cut the budgets.” I do think spending is an incredibly important part of the analysis when we’re thinking about property tax relief because what we don’t want to do is reduce property tax for folks and then keep the spending level where it is, and then we have to figure out what we need to make that delta, and where do we make up that delta? Are we just going to double up on other people? Well, that doesn’t necessarily help the situation, right?
Fortenberry: Yes, we can. There’s other ways to get taxes versus property tax. There’s sales tax, there’s capital gains tax, there’s a lot of other things you can tax, and bonds and other ways to get money.
Do you think the Indiana legislature is on the right track with recent education legislation?
Carrasco: Generally speaking, I would say that there’s a lot of really good that has come out in the sense of education from the Indiana legislature. … In having conversations with constituents around the district, my view and my thoughts about education obviously come to the top because I have a daughter, and so what I would I share with folks … I talk about the fact that it’s important for parents to have the ability to choose what methodology, what school is going to be the best for their kids. And so the idea that, generally speaking, throughout the last couple of years, the Indiana legislature has really pushed for parents to have a choice in the education of their students is something that I do think is incredibly positive. Higher education, that’s kind of a little bit of a different, but related kind of scheme. I think that it is positive to be able to recognize that a four-year educational institution is not a thing for everybody, and so I think that a shift towards an apprenticeship model, to be able to give everyone the ability to learn a trade and earn a living and establish a career, is excellent. We’re at a place where we need to find the right balance though, and so when you look at how our new graduation requirements are being set, you’re hearing about we’re going through the process of trying to figure out what striking that right balance is. I think that we’ve got some work to do. Which the Department of Education is looking at trying to find what those proper graduation requirements are. I welcome being part of the conversation. … We’re now at a point where, while there’s a recognition that college isn’t for everybody, there are students who obviously still want to go the college/university route, and so we’ve got to make sure that they’re prepared to be able to come into the university and succeed. But equally as important to me is as we’re developing these apprenticeship career paths for people, that we prepare them if they at some point later in their career choose to come back to higher education that we create a permeable kind of system where they’re going to be welcome back at the university, but have the ability, the skills at a basic level, to be able to succeed, just as if they had gone to the university right after graduating from high school. …
Fortenberry: Absolutely not. … The fact that if [kids] do choose a four-year college, they’re not ready to go into it. We need to have more like [Central Nine Career Center] down here in Johnson County, more programs for people to learn different trades. I went to college for a year. It wasn’t for me. I was lucky enough to get a great job at FedEx. I’m still there after 26 years, I have a career with a high school diploma and I made a good life for myself. College isn’t for everyone. Now, my wife is a physical therapist, doctor; college was her path, and again, great life, [she] loves her career. So we need to look at what are the different career paths that kids might want to take and find out what’s the best way to get them on track for their future. … I have a problem with the legislature micromanaging every little thing about education. There was a bill passed about the pronouns and what kids want to be called in school. What a distraction of legislation that was. What are the senators not wanting you to see by distracting you, [being] worried that William wants to be called Billy in school? You have to stop class, go call their parents, reach out. … There’s school boards to handle this stuff. We need to legislate, make sure they have the money to fund the schools, to fund the teachers, to fund the programs, and let the schools decide what’s best for each individual community.
Should the legislature act to help curb hospital costs for Hoosiers?
Carrasco: The legislature needs to understand what is contributing to the higher costs. Oftentimes, not just in the health care space, but in government in general, there’s a tendency to jump straight to solutions. … I’m a very data-driven person, and I believe that receiving the data, understanding the data is going to be able to give you the best result. So what do I mean by that? … We know that there is some work towards trying to identify what from the hospital side is contributing to those costs. But what I wonder, and what I question as a new member to the legislature is what other pieces are contributing to the higher cost? I do think that our healthcare costs are impacted by a number of factors, one of which is insurance. So before I can sit here and tell you this is what the answer should be, I think we need to continue and expand the conversation to understand what is contributing to these high costs, because if we start acting immediately, based on maybe anecdotal evidence, the healthcare space has is so multifaceted that not that we only get one chance to get it right, but it is healthcare, and it is oftentimes the most vulnerable in our communities. We have to get it right.
Fortenberry: We need to look and see what grant programs are coming from the federal government that we’re not accepting. … If we’ve got federal programs that they’re saying, here’s money to help you pay for insulin, for just yearly checkups, take the money that the federal government is trying to give us, and it all filters down and helps our pocketbooks for everyday working-class families. I’m a big advocate for your yearly checkup. I recently got checked up, had a little melanoma, Stage 0, [and they] cut it out. If I didn’t have that program in my health care for just a free yearly checkup … I could have easily missed a spot on my leg and it could have been way more serious if it had gone another year, six months down the road. So these are the 1/10/100 rules I’m talking about. Everyone should have at least a yearly checkup. … Indiana can help pay for these programs to make sure we get our yearly checkups and our families are taken care of.
What are your thoughts on the cuts made to Indiana Medicaid to address the $1 billion shortfall?
Carrasco: What you’ll find with me is I’m not a “zero-sum game” type of person. It’s abundantly clear that the costs associated with our FSSA budget for healthcare are increasing at an exponential rate. I’ve seen charts where … the line is pretty steady, and then it just the sharp increase. Again. I’m not one to just jump into a conclusion to say, “OK, let’s shut the valve off completely and be done with it.” Because as services are cut or reduced that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to effectuate a savings. We might effectuate a savings immediately, but in the long run, if an individual is not getting services in the immediate, more than likely the cost is going to be higher down the road, because the problem isn’t being treated. So I do think that we need to really take a very close look at what our expenses are. … Full transparency, my goal would be, how do we thread that needle in a way such that we’re effectuating savings in the areas that we can while still providing the services that you know our constituents need.
Fortenberry: No [I don’t agree with them.] It goes back to the other question. It’s if the state can afford it, if we have a surplus in our budget. … If we can afford to pay for health care for people who can’t afford it, it saves us money in the long run. If people can’t afford to go to the doctor on a regular basis, then they have to go get emergency room care which costs 10 times [the] amount, and then we end up having to pay for it then. This is one of the rules that if we can take care of the problem when it starts, it’s way cheaper in the long run for our state.
A recent study says Indiana needs $1 billion to fund needed improvements to local roads and bridges. What could the legislature do to raise this money?
Carrasco: In full transparency, I just finished my first legislative session, and so I could sit here and tell you, “This is the direction that we need to go. This is what needs to happen.” Where I’m at right now with respect to funding roads and transportation issues, is that my observations, we need to have a lot more discussion about what is actually happening. … We need to have a very thorough discussion on ways that we can improve. We’ve got some significant gaps that we have to fill in, and we need to have open discussions about all possibilities on how we’re going to ultimately bridge the gaps — pun intended, pun not intended — but bridge the gaps between what it’s costing us to actually be able to maintain our roads. This is not even talking about new projects. The study that came out was about what it would cost us to maintain our roads. … We need to think about a holistic approach — new projects, new buildings — so years after the next two years when the budget is set, what kinds of projects is the state of Indiana going to be looking at for improving our roads and our systems? In order to be able to tackle issues like the billion-dollar shortfall to just maintain the roads, plus a conversation about where are we going to be in the future, I think we need to have a very open discussion as a legislative body about what it is that we need to do, what our priorities are, and how are we going to do it and have all options on the table.
Fortenberry: We need to look at our taxes that we have on our fuel there. I think there should be a flex tax on that, say .. when fuel prices are high, maybe we can reduce the taxes on there. Right now, I just filled up. I think it was $2.99 a gallon. If we set a median amount, let’s say it’s $3.25, anything under $2.50, we can raise our taxes to equal $3.50. If we have a surge in fuel prices, maybe we can reduce our taxes at that price to relieve a little bit of pressure on people just trying to pay for gas to go to work. So having that lower fuel cost, we can up our taxes at that time without gouging the people at the pump.
The lack of affordable housing is an issue facing Johnson County and the state. Is this something you think the legislature should address?
Carrasco: I’m very interested in the topic, and I’ve been having a number of meetings on this issue. One of my priorities is crime and public safety, and so what you’ll find is a lot of the issues that we’ve talked about are interconnected and ultimately lead to quality of life and crime and public safety. So a foundational principle for people to be able to reduce the likelihood of being in a space where crime is going to be a part of your life is being able to have a home. It was a topic of conversation that I really started to learn about during my race for prosecutor and understand how those two issues are combined or intertwined. When I’ve been meeting folks and getting numbers that make you raise your eyebrows [on] the lack of affordable housing, it’s triggered me to want to know why, what are those factors that are actually affecting the lack of affordable housing? Do I think the legislature needs to review it? Certainly. Is it something that I’m going to continue to pursue? Absolutely. I want to understand what are those factors that are affecting the low availability of affordable housing because I do think that if we’re able to make a difference in that aspect, that is going to impact in lessening crime and improving public safety.
Fortenberry: That’s the $10 million question: How do we address affordable housing? What did they say, the best time to buy a house was 20 years ago, the second best time is to buy it now. We need to have more affordable starter homes. These great neighborhoods we have in Indianapolis are getting bought up by foreign companies, made into rental houses and the prices are set; you’re looking at a one or two-bedroom house, $1,500, $1,800 a month, which is ridiculous — and that’s renting. You don’t even have something at the end of the you know, 25-, 30-year mortgage. What can we do? We need to set more rules on if you’re not living in the house, there’s a maximum number of houses you can afford or not afford that you’re allowed to purchase and rent out, especially if you don’t live in the state. These outside companies, Russia, China are coming in and buying these houses and jacking up the prices. It’s unsustainable.
ABOUT THE JOB
What: Indiana State Senator
Term: Four years
Pay: $30,070.24 a year, with a $196 per diem a day (2024)
Duties: Senators draft and vote on legislation brought before the General Assembly, including the bi-annual state budget.
THE CARRASCO FILE
Name: Cynthia “Cyndi” Carrasco
Party: Republican
Age: 44
Residence: Perry Township, Indianapolis
Family: Husband, Robert; one daughter
Occupation: Vice President and General Counsel, University of Indianapolis
Education background: Canutillo High School, Canutillo, Texas; University of Texas — El Paso; I.U. McKinney School of Law, Indianapolis
Political experience: Ran for Marion County Prosecutor in 2022, not elected; District 36 incumbent since 2023
Memberships: SS. Francis & Clare Catholic Church, Greenwood; Indiana State Bar Association
THE FORTENBERRY FILE
Name: Suzanne Fortenberry
Party: Democratic
Age: 50
Residence: White River Township
Family: Wife, Chele Heid
Occupation: FedEx Express; owner and operator of Equality Engraving; executive director of Greenwood Pride; founder/manager of Every Kid Eats
Educational background: Tallulah Academy, Tallulah, Louisiana
Political experience: Ran for White River Township Trustee in 2022, not elected
Memberships: Resurrection Lutheran Church; Indiana Pride Network; Every Kids Eats; also organizes a group that picks up trash in local parks
CORRECTION: 9:39 a.m. Sept. 24
Because of incomplete information being sent into the Daily Journal, a section of Cyndi Carrasco’s education background was omitted in a previous version of this story.
