Donna’s Hoosier Roots and Values

Representative Donna Schaibley was born and raised in Indiana. She graduated from Purdue University with a B.A in education and political science. Donna has worked in the administration of two major universities, was a leader on the Board of Trustees of the Orchard School, and served as a substitute teacher in the Carmel Clay schools and as a volunteer in the community. She is a member of the Carmel Rotary Club. Donna and her husband John have two children, three grandchildren, and have lived in Carmel for 30 years.

Donna Schaibley has served the people of District 24 as their State Representative since 2015. Donna is vice chairman of the Courts and Criminal Code Committee, also serving on the Financial Institutions & Insurance Committee and the Public Health Committee. She is also a member of the Recycling Marketing Development Board and the All Payer Claims Database Board.

Donna’s Record of Legislative Accomplishments

Representative Donna Schaibley has a record of accomplishment in her eight sessions in the Indiana General Assembly and she is skilled in using the legislative process to improve the lives of Hoosiers. In fact, Donna was selected as the recipient of the 2020 Legislator of the Year Award by the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association. Donna has authored and sponsored numerous important bills which she successfully helped enact into law, including the following:

  • Reducing taxes on Hoosiers in the largest tax cut in Indiana history, and voting to return over $1.5 billion of the State budget surplus to Hoosier taxpayers.
  • Protecting rape victims by expanding the definition of rape under Indiana law.
  • Protecting victims of domestic abuse and other violence by strengthening protective order effectiveness and procedures.
  • Increasing Medicaid eligibility, coverage, and benefits for pregnant women.
  • Expanding the rights of violent crime victims to compensation.
  • Reforming bail procedures.
  • Safeguarding children and protecting their health by providing for the screening of young children for lead poisoning.
  • Reforming the regulation of dental plans to allow providers more control over fees paid by insurers.
  • Reforming commercial property tax law.
  • Establishing the motor vehicle insurance foster youth trust fund.
  • Establishing additional evidence preservation requirements for biological evidence, including DNA evidence.
  • Adding a much needed new Superior Court 7 in Hamilton County.
  • Improving mobile integrated healthcare programs and safety plans.
  • Establishing the all payer claims database advisory board to further enhance health care cost transparency.
  • Reforming health care law to enhance price transparency and improving health care services.
  • Enhancing training of law enforcement officers.
  • Establishing a system for proactive public health planning and preventative medicine.
  • Creating patient rights regarding health care costs, including the right to request a good faith estimate of costs from providers.
  • Providing additional education to our children about civics.
  • Providing training for investigators of sexual assault cases.
  • Providing for the proceedings and deliberations of wellness programs to be privileged and confidential, with certain exceptions.
  • Requiring hospitals to hold an annual public forum to obtain community feedback and discuss pricing, and requiring hospitals to post certain pricing information.
  • Providing health care cost transparency by requiring health care providers to inform patients about the actual costs of their health care services prior to treatment, and by establishing the framework of an All Payer Claims Database which will allow patients to comparison shop (on the basis of price and quality) for their healthcare services on-line.
  • Protecting victims of sexual assault by enacting a sexual assault victim bill of rights, as well as creating new procedural protections for children who are the victims of sexual assault
  • Helping our schoolchildren by providing access to additional mental health services in our schools with parental consent.
  • Creating a new magistrate position for the Hamilton County Courts to reduce court backlogs.
  • Improving the healthcare system by reforming the credentialing process and enabling physicians to obtain timely insurance reimbursement for their patient treatment.
  • Making our communities safer by preventing individuals adjudicated to be dangerous from purchasing firearms and ensuring such individuals are accorded due process rights.
  • Protecting our children by giving our schools information that enables them to identify child predators.
  • Expanding programs that aid at-risk youth, such as the Youth Assistance Program.
  • Requiring newborn screening for two debilitating diseases, SMA and SCIDS, which allows for early detection and treatment, averting devastating medical outcomes.
  • Requiring hands-free use of electronic devices to reduce the dangerous practice of distracted driving.
  • Reforming criminal sentencing law with hate crime legislation, which makes it an aggravating circumstance that a crime was committed because of certain characteristics of the victim–color, creed, disability, national origin, race, religion, or sexual orientation of the intended victim.
  • Streamlining the health insurance prior authorization process for patients so they can get the medical care they need in a timely manner, requiring insurers to respond to requests in a timely manner, and ensuring that insurance companies pay for services that they authorize.
  • Providing equitable and stable funding for community mental health centers, increasing fiscal transparency, and providing localities with additional data which will enable them to more effectively address mental health and drug problems.
  • Reducing duplicative paperwork for businesses.
  • Providing training for teachers in suicide awareness and prevention.
  • Giving Hoosiers with treatment-resistant epilepsy the option to use CBD oil as an alternative therapy.
  • Increasing penalties for hackers who install ransomware on computers and empowering Indiana to prosecute these cyber criminals.
  • Permitting families of children with disabilities to establish tax-exempt savings accounts (ABLE accounts) that can be used for maintaining health, quality of life, and peace of mind
  • Allowing DNA testing for those arrested for felonies which helps to solve crimes and exonerate innocent people.
  • Returning excess funds from the State Board of Accounts Reserve back to the counties, enabling many local projects to be funded.
  • Allowing direct primary care medical services as an option for Hoosiers.
  • Providing teachers with training to recognize dyslexia so children can get early intervention.
  • Modernizing government by streamlining and updating procedures for state and local government and reducing unnecessary paperwork.
  • Protecting property owners from excessive taxation of their rural property.
  • Giving localities greater authority to set lower school speed limits that they determine are appropriate to protect our children’s safety.
  • Clarifying the law regarding the services that cosmetologists may provide.

Donna also successfully advocated for an adjustment to the school funding formula that significantly increased funding for District 24 schools, and she continues to advocate for more equitable school funding. Addressing the important issue of school safety, Donna will continue to work to ensure that state government provides our local school districts with the tools necessary to help keep our children safe.

Donna also contributed to other accomplishments of the House of Representatives during her eight sessions in office, including reforms designed to reduce Hoosier health care costs, increasing school safety, balancing Indiana’s budget, cutting taxes, improving roads and infrastructure, supporting our military and veterans, addressing serious crime, protecting Indiana’s newborns, increasing access to mental health care, small business tax relief, giving terminally ill Hoosiers the right to try investigational treatments, doubling funding for domestic violence prevention and treatment programs, strengthening Indiana’s workforce, fully funding K-12 schools, attacking the opioid epidemic, aligning career and technical education programs with current and future employer needs, and increasing government efficiency. Indiana’s effective and responsive government has been nationally praised, including being ranked first in the nation for having the best state government by US News & World Report in 2017.

Donna’s Legislative Priorities for 2023

Donna routinely meets with constituents, community groups, school and business leaders, mayors, city and town council members, and state government officials in her continuing efforts to be informed about the needs and concerns of the people of District 24 and to effectively represent them in the General Assembly and to be their voice with state government agencies. Based upon that input, Donna pledges to continue her work on many issues, including the following priority areas:

  • Further increasing health care price transparency to enable Hoosiers to compare health care prices, workinig to reduce health care costs in Indiana.
  • Continuing to work for the rights of victims of domestic violence and human trafficking.
  • Maintaining a responsible budget for Indiana.
  • Encouraging school transparency and excellence.
  • Working to protect the most vulnerable children in our foster care system.
  • Working to ensure equal justice under the law and the ability of Hoosiers to exercise their  constitutionally guaranteed rights.