It looks like the push by the Governor for local government restructuring is on. A year ago, a commission led by former Governor Kernan and Chief Justice Shepard released a report (pdf) with suggestions for restructuring local government. My analysis of the report is here.
Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article on Governor Daniels’ press conference pushing many of the remaining items. I see that he is veering from the recommendations by suggesting that Sheriff remain an elected position instead of an appointed one.
First, let me disclose my bias. I’m a local government guy. I work with local government officials and watch them doing quality work day-in and day-out. I also see out of touch state officials blundering in from time to time without a clear notion of how local government functions. (Federal government intervention, it must be said, is orders of magnitude worse.) So, I’m a little skeptical when I see state officials holding forth on what local government must do to adapt to the 21st century; particularly where there is no apparent effort to look at what State government must do to improve its own operations. On the other hand, I recognize that if the State doesn’t push the issue, local government will not restructure in a uniform way.
The general thrust of the recommendations are to consolidate and to replace elected positions with appointed ones. The three county commissioners would be replaced with a single county executive. The unitary executive would also appoint the formerly elected assessor, treasurer, recorder, surveyor and coroner. The county council would have expanded legislative powers instead of being solely a fiscal body.
In addition, school districts with fewer than 1,000 students combine their district central-office operations with another school district. Townships, including the office of the township trustee, would essentially be eliminated. Poor relief, cemeteries, and fire protection responsibilities would apparently be shifted to the county.
Niki Kelly’s report suggests that the divisions on this issue will likely be more rural versus urban rather than Republican versus Democrat. Presumably the urban legislators will be more likely to support the restructuring. In a lot of ways the restructuring looks like Unigov in any case.
Abdul challenged anyone who did not work for local government to make a case against the restructuring. Here are my thoughts:
Diffusion of political power is a hedge against tyranny. I’m sure it’s wasteful. A despotism is probably the most efficient form of government (under the proper despot). Mussolini made the trains run on time and all of that. Will we all become enslaved if the township assessor is consolidated with the county assessor? Very doubtful. But, at some point there is a line where wasteful democracy becomes more valuable than efficiency.
With this in mind, I am glad the Governor is backing off on the appointment of the Sheriff rather than keeping it an elected position. I think it’s a good idea to keep the guy in charge of the guys with the guns an elected position, separate from the unitary county executive.
My thought all along has been that the consolidation movement is little more than a panacea for those who want smaller government- it has all the trappings, “Hey look! We’re eliminating offices!” without actually reducing government, and worse as you point out, it centralizes government, which has the effect of making it more remote, and less accountable.
Cynically, I believe that it is really just a Republican plan for the domination of elected offices. Republicans dominate most counties, so the elimination of township offices means, yes, the elimination of some Republicans, but also of Democrats, but more importantly politically, the consolidation of party hegemony over some 80+ of Indiana’s counties.
Doug said:
ding, ding, ding, ding, ding
I’m pretty sure that in some counties there is already a political machine at work; this just makes it that much easier for them. And think how much cheaper it will be – put all your funding to getting one guy in and you can own them all.
I’m actually in agreement with Mike Kole on this issue! Local government probably does need to be reformed, but to this extreme, I seriously doubt it. I’m not impressed by the fact that Kernan and Shepard were on the commission that made the original recommendations.
This still looks like blue suits in Indianapolis telling the rest of us how to govern, cuz we’s too stupid to figger it out ya know. Most of Indiana is more similar to Wayne County, Delaware County, and Vigo County than it is to Marion County. Yet people in Marion County always come up with Indianapolis-based “solutions” for the entire state. I deal with Indianapolis people who know nothing about Wayne County almost every day. Some of them are nice people (some of them are not nice people), but they have no clue about anything outside of the Indianapolis metro area. None. Nada. Zip. Honestly I think some of them don’t know that that the boundaries of Indiana are not the same as the boundaries of the Indianapolis metro area.
As for consolidating school districts, this sounds like a potential disaster in the making. Efficiency isn’t all about numbers.
Yes, Doug, this plan will result in less accountability at the local level and does have a whiff of tyranny about it.
If you enjoy watching political antics and scandal in “da region” just wait until this hits the ole Indiana Code books! The little guv is cooking up a wide open invitation to statewide cronyism at heretofore unimagined levels. Speaking of which, I wonder whose “e-mails and stuff” Cam is answering these days? Ack! Now I’m all fired up! Maybe I’ll work up a diary and get it off my chest over at Blue Indiana.
Consolidating school districts allows for a greater offering of subjects,so in that sense it’s good.The expense to taxpapers of any class taught is determined to be one-fifth of the average of all teachers salaries.The standard teachers load at HS level is 5 academic classes plus a study hall and other duties.So average class size is a huge fiscal issue for all schools.But there’s a point when a school district can be too large and unresponsive.
Yeah– like what happens to West Lafayette’s premium schools when Tippecanoe County swallows us up? I’d say that we get split up and fractured out of revenge… they’ve been waiting over the borders for decades salivating at the prospect, while taking legitimate WL kids– the boundaries of the city — and their money to boost Harrison.
One local example.
Hoosier 1st
On you local example, West Lafayette schools have approx 2,000 students. The governor lowered the minnimum number of students in a school district to 1,000 so they wouldn’t be impacted.
http://www.howeypolitics.com/2008/12/19/daniels-seeks-county-executive-school-consolidations/
Personally in my opinion, school districts are too top heavy and are too bolated with too many administrators which the money could be used more effecitvley in the classrooms with the consolidation of smaller school districts and reduction in the number of superintendents and administrators.
Mike,
With all due respect, I beleive some of these ideas warrants a hard look at. For example, getting rid of municipal elections on odd cycle years and moving them to even years. It’s extremeley expensive to have an election and municipal electins are notriously have low turnouts. If they are moved to even years you save counties/municipalities the expense of holding a primary and a municipal election every 4 years (the most recent being 2007)which can be pretty substantial.
Many of these proposals reach back to the idea of Old Regionalism, which basically scraps government and starts over. The ideas aren’t bad in and of themselves, but better ones exist. To support that notion I reference the lack of government consolidation anywhere in the country in the last few decades (except Indianapolis and Louisville).
Local governments need more flexibility in raising funds, not more cronyism. I’ve worked in public safety/health for 12 years. This is an area that is very costly, but also very necessary. There are MANY ways to improve service while decreasing costs, but we have to get past egos first.
Inter-local agreements on providing public safety services should be encouraged, especially in smaller counties. Having 2 or 3 man police departments, plus a town marshal, plus a sheriff’s dept. in the same county makes no sense for counties with less than 20,000 citizens. We need to move all of these officers under one dept (sheriff), add a reserve officer program, and shift the sheriff to a straight salary.
Counties funding private EMS services should stop. Counties are capable of running their own ambulance service and need to stop paying some private company to cover their 911 responsibility. This is basically a direct subsidization of private EMS service profits.
In Kentucky, some counties have a license plate fee to fund their government run EMS. It is my experience this type of funding flexibility works well, especially for funding public safety/health. It also makes property taxes lower and less complicated. The fees I spoke of were negligible (10 dollars per plate) and gave the EMS an adequate stable budget.
Finally, the idea of removing elected officials and replacing them with appointments is terrible beyond belief. The complaint I heard around Indianapolis about township government was it was a “family affairâ€, where one elected official employed his/her entire family with appointments. What Daniels plans to do is create family business on a state-wide scale. What are my chances of removing a coroner who is screwing up death investigations if the coroner is the county execs brother? This is the situation we will be facing in the proposed system.
More direct accountability to the people is called for, not less
If the only thing standing between Indiana and tyranny is the fact that the county recorder is elected, we are already lost.
I believe that we should get rid of most of these petty elected offices and make them appointed offices; although it may be counterintuitive, I think that this will have the overall result of making the offices more accountable. While the idea of the voters carefully scrutinizing the county auditor to make sure that he or she is properly carrying out the duties of the office is the democratic ideal, in the real world, 90% of voters have no idea who the auditor is, much less how well they are doing their job. The result of this is that these petty officials continue to be voted into office based on their party rather than on how well they are doing their job – unless there is a spectacular and public failure. Making these petty officers employees will have the effect of holding them more accountable than if they were elected because the appointing authority will pay more attention to their performance than the general public. Indeed, the appointing authority will at least know what their job entails. And people do know and will hold major elected officials accountable for how the county/city as a whole is running.
A couple of years ago the clerk of the supreme court was changed from an elected to a position appointed by the supreme court. I don’t think that anyone can seriously claim that this led to tyranny, or even that it made the office less accountable. The supreme court clerk’s job is to handle filings for the appellate court. I doubt that even .01% of the population ever knew how well or poorly David Lewis (the last elected sct clerk) was doing his job. This is not good support for the accountability argument.
On the other hand, the members of the appellate court knew *precisely* how well he was doing his job. Since they now have the power to choose the sct clerk, I think that the accountability of this office has increased immensely.
With no increase in tyranny!
To Peter and others: I don’t believe that anyone said that no reform is needed. Unlike many others commenting here, I worked in county government for several years. While it is true that most people have no idea what elected officials do, and perhaps some elected offices could be converted to appointed positions with no problems, that does not mean that the Kernan/Shepard commission proposals (or the governor’s slight modifications) are
good ideas. You have taken one example and used it to justify wholesale reform and elimination of local elected positions. Nice try; wont fly. One can hardly compare the clerk of the Supreme Court with a local county auditor, treasurer, etc. Vesting many of the powers of local government in a single person does have the potential for tyranny, whether you want to believe it or not.
Furthermore, getting rid of township trustees is just one more way for Daniels and his ilk to eliminate or make extremely difficult for people in need to access important services. The need for the trustee’s services will not disappear simply because the office is eliminated.
I suspect that much of the support for local goverment reform comes from people in Indianapolis/Marion County and the few places in the entire state that are similar. Most of Indiana is made up of counties with a small city as the county seat surrounded by a largely rural area. What may make sense in terms of “efficiency” in a large urban area does not necessarily make sense in more rural counties.
Traveling 20 miles to school in Indianapolis is a heck of a lot different than traveling 20 miles to school in Wayne County, Randolph County, etc., for instance. Making someone in Hagerstown come to Richmond to discuss some pressing problem with the County Executive (who will no doubt be covered over with work, anyway) may not seem like a big deal to someone in Indianapolis. Nevermind that there is no metro service between Hagerstown and Richmond. If the person in Hagerstown lacks transportation or access to the internet (fairly common in rural areas), that person may have no recourse.
The average person having no recourse-Seems to be a theme for RepubliCons and “My Man Mitch’s” administration.
I for one would gladly welcome the entire consolidation program and the ability of a unitary executive to appoint his subordinates providing that Indiana installed a process to allow for the impeachment of that unitary executive prior to their term being up. If the unitary executive is a jerk, incompetent or corrupt, then allow for a way for the public to get rid of them (not the legislature, the PUBLIC). Have it where if you can gather a certain percentage of the voting public then a special ballot is called for within two months and the executive can be easily removed (unlike the garbage they’re having to deal with in Illinois right now). With that kind of power for the public I can handle a unitary executive, but with Indiana’s stupid “I’m in office again, nyah, nyah, nyah!” system there’s no way in hell I can justify stuffing all that cronyistic (is that even a word?) power into one individuals hands. The point in having multiple elected officials is to disburse power, not consolidate it. Further, I may like how my Republican County Treasurer’s handling the books, but I don’t want the newly elected Democrat executive to come in and fire the entire staff so they can appoint their own “friends” who may not know a ledger from a kegger.
The details need to be worked out but I don’t think there is any doubt that Indiana is loaded down with too much local government. Townships are a complete anachronism which costs us a lot of money. Where are the ‘less government’ Republicans on this blog when you need them? And hey is the Mussolini guy available for Obama’s FAA administrator?
Well I can say that in Wayne County, the lower level workers in the offices of County Auditor, Treasurer and the like are *usually* allowed to stay because the elected official often functions more as a dept. head and doesn’t actually do the day to day work. It doesn’t make sense to get rid of good (or mostly good) employees every time a new person is elected into office.
I have to say that those who have no qualms about eliminating township offices and eliminating elected officials based upon the few people who actually hold those people accountable. Is that the sort of government you want? Few people have ever read the Constitution of the United States (or of Indiana). Maybe we should get rid of constitutional rights and offices since most people don’t know how they work. Why have civil courts? Most people don’t use them, and when they do it is for “frivolous” suits (according to some). Get rid of them, too, or at least erect impediments to using them so that the courts can operate more efficiently. I may never have need for the services of the township trustee, but I am glad that there are people in my county who are in proximity to people in need of those services.