After the 2005 legislative session, the superintendents for Northwest and Southwest Allen County schools invited area lawmakers to Homestead High School to meet with parents unhappy about how the state’s funding formula treated their school districts.

“We’re dressing the poor kids in fur while our students don’t even have a coat,” one mother told the legislators. “Don’t make my child the poor student.”

Rep. Jeff Espich, who had overseen budget negotiations as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, didn’t bother to hide his irritation.

“You’re winners,” he shot back. “You’re just not winners enough to suit yourselves.”

Espich’s blunt response to undeserved criticism, along with the expert financial leadership he’s provided the entire state, will be missed when the Uniondale Republican’s term ends this year.

Just before the primary election filing deadline Friday, Espich notified The Journal Gazette’s Niki Kelly that he won’t seek a 21st term.

Maps redrawn by Republican leaders last year placed Espich in the same legislative district as Rep. Dan Leonard, R-Huntington.

Espich’s retirement ends an impressive 40 years of service to the General Assembly and his northeast Indiana constituents. As the House shifted between Republican and Democratic control, his status changed; but he always remained a leader and respected voice on the powerful Ways and Means panel.

Espich largely avoided introducing the divisive social measures and focused his energies on tax policy and legislation aimed at improving the function of local and state government. He is a pragmatist in an assembly increasingly marked by partisanship and demagoguery, always mindful that a passionate stand on principle works even better with a gentle touch of humor.

Espich’s legacy will be four decades of steady and sound financial oversight. Even in seeking control over state universities’ tuition-setting authority – an issue on which this page disagreed because of the detrimental effect it could have on their quality – he acted out of genuine concern for Hoosier students and families, not out of spite or to flex his authority.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle would be well served to follow his model.