IndianaSB 80Second Regular Session 124th General Assembly (2026)SenateWALLET

Code publication.

Sponsored By: Aaron Freeman (Republican)

Signed by Governor

Summary

Addresses unresolved amend-repeal conflicts created during the 2025 legislative session. Repeals and relocates the specific definitions chapters for organization of defined terms by alphabetical order and to provide for future expansion of those chapters. Makes conforming cross-reference updates. Resolves technical conflicts between SB 80-2025 and HB 1088-2025 (the annual Technical Corrections bill) and technical conflicts between various enrolled acts passed during the 2026 legislative session. Makes no substantive change to law.

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Bill Overview

Analyzed Economic Effects

47 provisions identified: 18 benefits, 6 costs, 23 mixed.

Student workplace injury benefits and limits

Students performing services in work-based learning count as employees for specified workers’ compensation benefits. Paid students can receive benefits, but no extra benefit based on being under 17. Unpaid students cannot receive temporary total or partial disability payments. If a covered injury kills an unpaid student, dependents receive $175,000, or parents receive it when there are no dependents. These benefits replace other recovery for covered injuries or deaths, except remedies under IC 5-2-6.1. Beginning July 1, 2026, covered placements require written agreements assigning insurance responsibility to employers or third-party employers of record. This covers specified apprenticeships and learning courses with ongoing or recurring work, not primarily remote placements outside employer-controlled worksites. Beginning that date, covered liability and workers’ compensation policies also follow IC 27-7-19.

Broader domestic violence protections for families

Domestic or family violence includes unjustified animal abuse intended to threaten, intimidate, coerce, harass, or terrorize a household member. For specified employment-related and protective-order laws, stalking and sex offenses count even when the offender is outside the family. Family or household members include current or former spouses and dating or sexual partners, relatives, listed caregiving relationships, and co-parents. In those relationships, either person's minor child also counts as a household member of both.

Juvenile cases can cover young adults

People ages 18 through 20 count as children in specified delinquency and child-in-need-of-services cases tied to events before age 18. The definition also covers a person under 21 accused of an act that constitutes murder by an adult. That alleged act must have occurred before the person's 18th birthday.

Limits on emergency child-welfare intervention

Child Services needs specific evidence supporting suspicion of imminent physical or sexual abuse, or neglect seriously endangering physical safety. No less intrusive option can reasonably protect the child. At least one listed circumstance must apply: caregiver responsibility or awareness without protection, danger from delay or notice, or an unaccompanied homeless minor voluntarily receiving shelter care. Educational neglect does not qualify. The law also defines unsupervised independent activities, including walking, biking, transit, outdoor play, staying home, and remaining in a parked vehicle; this is not blanket permission.

Religious-belief protections cover child-service decisions

The child-services law defines discrimination to include listed adverse actions based wholly or partly on sincerely held religious beliefs. Covered actions include funding or benefit denials, contract and job actions, child-placement refusals, tax changes, fines, and penalties. The law retains its stated exception for child-placement reasons.

Assistance definitions for children needing support

For specified assistance programs, a needy child under 16 meets the dependent-child definition. Needy 16- and 17-year-olds must attend school regularly and lack parental support because of death, continued absence, or incapacity. They must lack adequate support without public assistance and live with a parent, sibling, grandparent, stepparent, stepsibling, aunt, or uncle. A separate destitute-child definition covers needy children under 18 who are not public wards and need licensed foster care without becoming wards. These children must also lack parental support for the listed reasons, and responsible relatives must be unable to provide adequate care or support without assistance.

Medicaid help for people leaving custody

The Department of Correction must help people with mental illness or addiction arrange Medicaid treatment before parole, community transition, or discharge. It acts as an authorized representative or health navigator. Beginning July 1, 2026, county sheriffs must provide similar help before jail release, consulting county leaders or their designees. Assistance also covers inpatient psychiatric care during custody to the extent federal law allows. People in work release or other department alternative-sentencing programs are eligible for Medicaid services, subject to federal law.

More convictions trigger violent-crime sentencing rules

Beginning July 1, 2026, more offenses count as crimes of violence for sentencing. Listed offenses include felony battery, felony domestic battery, child exploitation, and child sexual abuse material offenses. Consecutive-sentence caps do not apply to crimes of violence, and the definition affects aggravating factors involving a minor's presence or hearing. Listed firearm offenses require at least two unrelated qualifying prior convictions or juvenile adjudications, including one of each.

More offenders face registration and location limits

Beginning July 1, 2026, murder and voluntary-manslaughter convictions fall under sex-or-violent-offender registration rules, subject to the chapter's exceptions. The serious-sex-offender definition includes specified child exploitation and child sexual abuse material convictions. The material-offense references distinguish offenses before July 1, 2026, from those after June 30, 2026. Covered people required to register commit a Level 6 felony by knowingly or intentionally entering specified school or child-focused entertainment locations.

Broader collection rules for child support

For two child-support enforcement laws, income includes anything of value owed to the person who owes support. Withholding orders can collect support and specified support and maintenance fees. One law defines delinquency as owing at least one month's ordered support; another covers arrears under valid Indiana or other-state orders. For support laws, incarceration means full-time confinement preventing paid work, including home detention, but excludes alternatives that allow work. These definitions do not change the ordered support amount.

Caregivers face custody status time tests

A primary caregiver providing financial support can qualify as a de facto custodian after the child lives with them long enough. The minimum is six months for a child under 3, or one year for a child age 3 or older. Time after a custody case starts does not count. Foster-family-home caregivers are excluded.

Children's shelters face stay and safety limits

Emergency shelters provide round-the-clock temporary care for children admitted in an emergency, for no more than 60 consecutive days. A shelter cannot lock children in unless its administrator finds this necessary to protect the child's health. A group home is a residential structure providing round-the-clock care for no more than 10 children.

Foster applicants face checks and protections

The department, or an applicant at its direction, must complete criminal checks for household members and covered workers and volunteers. Applicants pay the fees; checks are due before residence or regular, continuing direct contact with children begins. Licensing failures and nonwaivable convictions require denial; listed abuse findings, other convictions, false statements, and unlicensed operation also support denial. Some offenses allow waivers, immunization status or refusal alone cannot justify denial, and specified former-person conduct is excluded after separation. Applicants have 30 days after receiving written denial to request a hearing in writing.

Young residents gain specified abuse protections

Specified child-welfare abuse protections cover people ages 18 through 20 who live or formerly lived in department-licensed residential facilities. Covered harm includes listed battery offenses or sexual activity by facility staff. For the specified child-molesting offense, allegations must involve fondling or touching the buttocks, genitals, or female breasts. The abuse definition excludes raising or referring to a child consistently with the child's biological sex.

Broader mental-health intervention with defined limits

The law broadens grave-disability criteria for mental illness that creates danger through unmet essential needs or inability to function independently. It includes people without adequate shelter who face deadly or seriously harmful weather after refusing reasonably offered, available transportation to shelter or mental-health care. Specified mental-illness definitions require substantially disturbed thinking, feeling, or behavior that impairs functioning, and include intellectual disability, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Temporary alcohol- or drug-related impairment counts under one emergency-detention statute. Two separate statutory definitions exclude developmental disability.

Disability service rules preserve existing protections

The law defines developmental disability as a severe, chronic condition tied to intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, autism, or closely related conditions. A sole mental illness diagnosis does not qualify. The disability must appear before age 22, likely last indefinitely, and substantially limit at least three specified major life activities. This definition does not affect division services for people receiving home- and community-based Medicaid waiver or ICF/IID services on June 30, 2011.

Family services cover preservation and permanent homes

Family preservation services mean short-term, intensive help for families whose children risk placement outside the home. They also cover families adopting or planning to adopt abused or neglected children at risk of placement or adoption disruption. Family services include preventing removal, reunification, and carrying out adoption, guardianship, or emancipation plans. The hard-to-place definition includes disadvantages tied to race, ethnicity, language, age, or physical, mental, or medical disability. It also includes sibling groups that should share one home; these definitions do not set a payment amount.

Relative caregivers count in foster definitions

For specified child-welfare laws, foster care includes licensed placements and children living with an unlicensed adult relative. Under juvenile law, foster parents include licensed and unlicensed kinship caregivers providing care and supervision in foster family homes. These definitions do not themselves create a caregiver payment.

Emergency rules for township assistance

For township assistance, an emergency means unpredictable events that put a household member’s health or safety at risk. The problem must be impossible to fix in time through means other than township assistance. This definition guides emergency assistance decisions; it does not set a payment amount.

Graduation plans start by eighth grade

Beginning July 1, 2026, students must develop graduation plans with school counselors by the end of grade 8. The plan stays in each student’s permanent record and is accessible to parents. Schools must give parents a copy and a chance to discuss the plan.

Eligible aircraft owners get tax credit

Beginning July 1, 2026, aircraft owners eligible for the specified property tax deduction also qualify for an aircraft excise tax credit. The credit equals the deduction left after its use against property taxes, capped at the aircraft excise tax due. The department cannot allow it until the county auditor’s certified statement is filed. For aircraft subject to both excise and personal property taxes, the deduction applies to both.

Farm permit delays trigger fee refunds

Indiana’s environmental agency must refund confined feeding operation approval fees when it misses the 90-day decision deadline. The clock starts with a complete application, including all required supplemental information. The refund requirement does not apply when the applicant and agency agree to more time. The agency must refund the fee within 25 business days after a request and continue reviewing the application promptly.

Bail payment options for violent felonies

For qualifying Level 1 through Level 5 violent felonies, the full money bail can be paid by bond, cash, or both. A judge must first set bail individually after an open-court hearing. The court reviews the probable cause affidavit or arrest warrant. The law does not set a bail amount.

Broader civil rights and retaliation protections

Beginning July 1, 2026, Indiana's civil rights law expressly includes labor organizations among covered persons. Discriminatory practices include violations of specified state abortion-conscience rights and federal Civil Rights Act Titles VI and VII and Title IX. The definition also covers retaliation against someone for taking action to protect a right under the state civil rights law.

Criteria identify missing adults needing help

A missing endangered adult must be at least 18 and reported missing to law enforcement. The person must be, or be believed to be, a temporary or permanent Indiana resident. Someone familiar with the person must be unable to locate them. Mental illness, intellectual disability, dementia, or another qualifying incapacity must prevent the person from returning home without help. Other qualifying incapacity must affect property management or self-care.

Ivy Tech boards guide campus planning

Ivy Tech campus boards must include at least five state-board appointees with specified knowledge or experience. This replaces the stated manufacturing, commercial, agricultural, labor, and education group requirement. Members must live in the service area or represent an employer operating there. Boards review programs, operating budgets, and building use, and recommend job-related training, transfer-friendly curriculum, and budget savings. Before approving capital requests or requests for proposals, they must review building use against enrollment projections and operating efficiency.

Lake County event center gains reserves

The law creates a Lake County convention and event center reserve fund. It covers additions, refurbishment, budget shortfalls, and unusual costs for a center built with convention-fund money. The reserve receives specified transfers, gifts, grants, donations, and other public or private contributions. County commissioners administer it until the convention center authority is established, when administration shifts to that authority. No fund amount is specified.

Proxy adviser violations trigger consumer protections

A supplier’s violation of Indiana’s proxy-adviser law counts as a deceptive act under state consumer protection law. This adds consumer-protection consequences for covered violations. The supplied text does not specify a particular remedy or household payment.

Nonprofit coaching work loses employer coverage

Beginning July 1, 2026, qualifying nonprofits are excluded from the workers’ compensation definition of employer for certain coaching arrangements. The nonprofit must be tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3). The coach must provide part-time youth coaching under an independent-contractor agreement. This exclusion narrows the nonprofit’s workers’ compensation responsibility for that work.

Public works contractors face qualification rules

Contractors must meet state qualification rules before working on covered public works contracts awarded after December 31, 2016. The rule includes road, street, highway, and alley projects. A local-unit contract below $300,000 is exempt when the local unit follows the referenced public works requirements.

Child-welfare trafficking victim definition is repealed

Beginning July 1, 2026, the law repeals the trafficking-victim definition used in one specified child-welfare law. That definition listed forced labor, involuntary servitude, prostitution, child exploitation, and human trafficking. The supplied provision does not identify a replacement definition or explain effects on individual cases.

Extra county trust-account distributions end

Beginning January 1, 2028, the law ends specified supplemental trust-account distributions to counties and their taxing units. These distributions apply when county trust balances exceed the applicable percentage of certified distributions. The supplied text gives no distribution amounts or replacement funding.

Adoption records include more identifying details

Adoption identifying information includes names and addresses used by adoption parties and original birth certificates containing evidence of adoption. It also includes other information that can identify birth parents, adoptees, adoptive parents, or other adoption parties. Medical history is excluded from that catchall category. This definition does not itself grant or deny access to records.

Child advocates need role-specific court training

Court-appointed guardians ad litem must protect a child's best interests and provide services requested by the court. In listed juvenile and child-welfare cases, they must complete role-appropriate training on abuse, neglect, and child development. Non-attorneys must also complete the court-approved training required for court-appointed special advocates.

Filing dates set spouses' final separation

For divorce property rules, the final separation date generally is the date the divorce petition was filed. An earlier legal-separation filing controls when that case was pending or a provisional order or final decree remained in effect. The law does not provide a new property or support formula.

Foster youth definitions reach age 23

One foster-youth definition covers ages 12 through 23 for a specified child-welfare statute. The person must be a child in need of services or receiving collaborative care, and placed outside the home. A second definition covers ages 15 through 23 for another statute. That person must be adjudicated a child in need of services or have been in foster care upon becoming an adult.

Short treatment stays after prison release

The Department of Correction can retain a person in its treatment facility for up to 14 days after mandatory release. The person must have a serious physical or mental disorder or disability and await a similar outside treatment placement. The department must first make a good-faith effort to arrange timely placement. The person must consent to staying, or a court must have ordered commitment to outside treatment.

School device limits and recording exceptions

School corporations and charter schools must adopt no-device or storage policies restricting student wireless devices throughout the school day. School-supplied devices cannot be used for noneducational purposes. Before July 1, 2028, teacher-directed use of school-sanctioned devices is allowed only when the school does not supply devices. After June 30, 2028, teacher-directed use must involve school-supplied devices. Exceptions cover individualized education or Section 504 plans, documented medical needs ordered by licensed providers, authorized emergencies, and translation. Students may use unobtrusive audio devices solely for personal learning or notes, subject to school restrictions and recording-consent laws. Devices cannot capture images or video, must remain visible to staff, and must be available for inspection. Policies permitting them must prohibit using recordings to discipline, evaluate, or supervise students or school employees.

Child institutions face license safety checks

Beginning July 1, 2026, listed abuse findings, convictions, false statements, unlicensed operation, and juvenile adjudications can support license denial or revocation. Recent license revocation also supports denial; failure to follow a Homeland Security order supports revocation. Some worker-related findings allow waivers based on offense history, rehabilitation, proposed duties, and qualifications. A former worker's conduct alone is insufficient when dismissal follows within a reasonable time after discovery.

Child-care institutions must screen covered workers

Child-caring institutions must obtain criminal-history checks for applicants, directors or managers, and covered employees, contractors, and volunteers. Coverage includes likely unsupervised child contact and, for volunteers, access to children’s medical records. Checks generally precede the relevant application, renewal, employment, volunteer assignment, or contract; applicants or institutions pay the fees. Limited training before completion requires specified fingerprint, sex-offender, local-record, and child-protection checks. During that training, the person cannot contact children or access their records. Residence outside Indiana within the past five years triggers requests for additional out-of-state checks. The person must attest under penalty of perjury to specified out-of-state abuse complaints and law-enforcement contacts during those five years.

Government coverage excludes specified public hospitals

For the specified family-law chapter, governmental entities include state government, local governments, and their agencies and instrumentalities. State educational institutions and other listed legally established entities are included. Hospitals established and operated under three listed state laws are excluded. The supplied text does not describe the chapter's underlying duties.

More caregivers covered by child-protection rules

The custodian definition includes listed license applicants, facility workers, caregivers, and members of a noncustodial parent's household. It also includes people providing care who have or plan regular, continuing direct contact with a child. A paid caregiver qualifies under specified laws when providing care at a residence other than the child's home without the resident parent, guardian, or custodian. That caregiver must receive more than $2,000 yearly and must not need a child-care-home or foster-home license. These definitions alone do not require every covered person to take a specific action.

Child-welfare laws define covered health workers

Specified child-welfare laws count listed medical and mental-health professionals, emergency responders, pharmacists, and hospital social workers and technicians as providers. People working under a listed practitioner's direction also count. The definition alone does not describe a new payment or specific duty.

Annexation paths for homeowners association communities

Third-class cities and one specified town can annex qualifying homeowners-association developments. Cities need at least 300 proposed or existing single-family lots; the town needs 500. Developments must lie entirely within 4.5 miles of municipal boundaries and include an existing or planned commercial area. City developments must connect to city sewer or water and adjoin a state-highway right-of-way. City annexations cover only the development and connecting highway right-of-way, with some boundary touching the city. The town must have over 30,000 residents in a county with over 174,000 but under 180,000 residents. Its developments need at least $500 million in construction costs, an existing sewer line to town limits, and town sewer and water connections. The town annexation boundary must not touch its existing boundary. Unless governing documents say otherwise, association boards can petition; municipalities must approve initiation within 60 days or the petition expires. Municipalities must prepare fiscal plans, conduct outreach, provide notice, and hold a hearing at least 30 days after ordinance introduction. Landowners retain the stated right to challenge annexation.

Education code section repealed in 2026

Beginning July 1, 2026, the law repeals IC 20-51.4-5.5-4. The supplied text does not explain that section's subject or its effect on households.

School approval required for housing district

The specified town’s redevelopment commission cannot create a housing tax increment financing district in Liberty Township, Hendricks County, without school approval. Mill Creek School Corporation must approve the district by resolution. The provision does not set household taxes or housing costs.

Related businesses count as joint employers

Beginning July 1, 2026, specified related businesses count as joint employers under two workers’ compensation provisions. Covered relationships include control, common ownership, and parent corporations with subsidiaries. Employee lessors and lessees also count as joint employers for workers supplied between them.

Sponsors & Cosponsors

Sponsor

Aaron Freeman
Republican • Senate

Cosponsors

Greg Taylor
Democratic • Senate
Karen Engleman
Republican • House

Roll Call Votes

All Roll Calls

Yes: 280 • No: 1

Senate vote • 2/27/2026

Rules Suspended. Conference Committee Report 1: adopted by the Senate

Yes: 46 • No: 1

House vote • 2/27/2026

Rules Suspended. Conference Committee Report 1: adopted by the House

Yes: 92 • No: 0

House vote • 2/9/2026

Third reading: passed

Yes: 94 • No: 0

Senate vote • 1/8/2026