The Shepard-Kernan report on government reform will be released today. The Evansville Courier Press has an editorial on the subject. Governor Daniels commissioned former Governor Kernan and current Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard to take a look at local government and propose reforms.
Part of the problem with local government in Indiana is that there’s just too much of it, Daniels has said. Indiana has 2,730 local units of government that can levy property taxes — including counties, townships, cities, towns and school corporations — plus an estimated 10,746 elected officials, according to the Daniels administration.
. . .
It may have made sense to have very local government in the 1850s, when contacting or visiting the county seat or state capital was far more difficult than it is now, said James Madison, a history professor at Indiana University. But that government model created under the 1851 state constitution was outdated by the 1930s, Madison said.
The commission’s charge is here.
The Commission on Local Government Reform is charged with recommending ways to restructure local government to increase efficiency and reduce the financial burden on Indiana taxpayers.
By the end of 2007 it will deliver a set of proposals for changing the structure, organization, and number of units of local government (and local officials).
In conducting its work, the Commission will seek to answer the following questions about the future of local government in Indiana:
1. What local government offices might be eliminated to achieve efficiencies and cost savings for Hoosier taxpayers? In specific, should township/county property tax assessors be abolished in favor of a uniform process managed by the state?
2. What local units of government (including schools and libraries) might be successfully consolidated to reduce overhead and administrative expenses?
3. What services or functions of local government might be reduced, eliminated, or provided in new ways to achieve savings for Hoosier taxpayers?
4. What constitutional, statutory, administrative, or other changes are necessary to achieve significant reforms in the structure and organization of Indiana state government?
Note that the commission started with the assumption that local government needed to be consolidated, reduced, and eliminated. The charge did not call for the commission to look at any benefits local government might provide. It did not call for a look at how, for example, state government power might be distributed to local units to make them more useful.
The editorial suggests that, back when Indiana’s government was formed, local government was more necessary because it was harder to travel to and communicate with Indianapolis. The editorial points out that this suggestion was made as far back as the 1930s. But, a funny thing has happened since the 1930s. Information technology has changed such that a top-down, pyramid command structure is no longer necessarily the most efficient management model. Often times, distributed decision making is more flexible, efficient, and responsive.
Legislators should take a look at the commission’s recommendations. But they should recognize the possibility that the recommendations were already built into the initial assumptions. Perhaps they could take this opportunity to empower local government so that it does not have to waste valuable time and resources going through Indianapolis before decisions can be made.
Update The Indianapolis Star has article on the subject here. One rumored proposal mentioned in that article is to go from three county commissioner to one. That would be in line with Daniels’ apparent preference for the pharaonic model of government — one supreme leader receiving information from the masses and then issuing mandates. Multiple decision makers living down in the trenches with those they govern isn’t really in the finest Daniels tradition.
Update II The Kernan-Shepard Report is available here (pdf).
I agree with your point questioning whether centralized government is better than distributed government. It strikes me as a little amusing that the Republicans are now big advocates of central control; weren’t they formerly all about local control?
But I do think county government might benefit from being reformed along ‘separation of powers’ lines. In civics class, we were all taught that there are three branches of government, administrative, legislative, and judicial. In Indiana county government, these lines are blurry, to say the least.
A single commissioner, in charge of the administrative functions, a county council in charge of legislation and budgetary matters, and a handful of elected officials in the judiciary branch (judges, prosecuting attorneys, and the clerk of courts) would be a more logical system. It would concentrate more power in the commissioner, but folks would know who to blame too. It also might attract more professionalism to the position. If implemented it would be important to set up council districts to ensure a range of representation in the legislative/budgetary decisions.
So, while I share your concern about the Daniels administrations tendency to want to concentrate power, I think county government would be less murky with these reforms.
I am totally stealing “Pharonic model of government”.
Doug:
Frankly, I had to howl when I read your assertion:
“Often times, distributed decision making is more flexible, efficient, and responsive.”
Do you have any substantiation to offer for that assertion? Or is that just New-Age biz speak?
You’re not saying local government in Indiana is the model that all other states should follow, are you? Just what *are* you saying?
I’m not saying local government is the model for this. What I have in mind is a little more abstract. I’m thinking in terms of network organization instead of a top-down command structure. For example, note how economic centers in cities have gone from mostly being concentrated in a centralized, downtown location to more of a node system. Or, perhaps, think of Linux, open-source software development as opposed to Microsoft-Windows development.
Depending on the situation, direct communication between small nodes might be more effective than reporting up the chain to the top of the pyramid before the response makes its way back down.
I’ll admit that I don’t have any particular situation in mind, but I don’t think the commission’s charge really allowed consideration of local government’s relationship to state government.
One example of a distributed decision making system is the free market. Instead of having a dictator set the price of bread, we rely on the give and take of the marketplace set the price of bread.
Similarly, ants are hardly mental giants if considered individually, but they’ve developed a thoroughly decentralized system for food gathering that creates a collective intelligence. Here’s a [link].