A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Local Government Restructuring

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This is going to be much shorter than the topic deserves, but I am sure I will revisit it later. The Senate passed SB 506 which provides for restructuring the county executive in all counties except for Lake and Marion County. It requires the county commissioners to adopt a resolution that

the voters of the county shall: (1) elect a single county chief executive officer to serve as the county executive and a county council that has the legislative and fiscal powers and duties of the county; (2) elect a board of county supervisors that is a combined county executive, legislative, and fiscal body that has the executive, legislative, and fiscal powers and duties of the county; or (3) provide that the voters shall choose, in a public question to be held in 2010, the structure of county government. Provides that if a public question is held in 2010, the voters shall choose one of two options for the structure of county government: (1) the county shall elect a board of county supervisors that is a combined county executive, legislative, and fiscal body that has the executive, legislative, and fiscal powers and duties of the county; or (2) the county shall not reorganize county government.

Meanwhile, other parts of the Governor’s efforts to restructure local government have apparently been gutted; most notably the effort to do away with township government.

I have mixed feelings on the subject of restructuring local government, but I would say that townships strike me as being further up the list of likely targets for modification than the board of commissioner approach to a county executive.

SB 529 – Governmental Transfer of Real Property

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I wonder what the problem is that Sen. Stutzman is trying to fix here. His SB 529 repeals IC 36-1-11-8 which provides:

A transfer or exchange of property may be made with a governmental entity upon terms and conditions agreed upon by the entities as evidenced by adoption of a substantially identical resolution by each entity. Such a transfer may be made for any amount of real property, cash, or other personal property, as agreed upon by the entities.

The bill also provides that a political subdivision may not transfer real property to another political subdivision without consideration.

HB 1650 – Road Salt Purchases

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Reps. Austin and Michael have introduced HB 1160 having to do with road salt purchases in an effort to take advantage of bulk purchasing power. Specifically, it requires the state Department of Administration to enter into quantity purchase agreements with salt vendors that have a provision requiring the vendor to offer salt purchases to local units of government under the same terms.

That’s right, I’m blogging about road salt purchases. It can’t all be pretty speeches and inaugurations.

Local Government Restructuring

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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.

Local Government: Budgetary Whipping Boy

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I ran across a couple of items that, in juxtaposition, highlighted the difficulties of local government officials nicely.

Justice & Fortitude has a post that suggests runaway local government spending as the cause of our property tax woes:

“If we don’t do something about local government, putting caps on property taxes will be like slapping a Band-Aid on a more serious wound–or rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

(There is additional language in the post speaking of the need to engage repeal property taxes entirely to prevent the “enslavement” of Hoosiers through property taxes.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Indiana Court of Appeals rejected a claim by local government that the State ought to have to pay for detention expenses of the juvenile offenders sentenced by State judges. The General Assembly has since taken action to relieve local government of those expenses. But, as a general proposition, it isn’t really appropriate to criticize those expenditures of local government where local government is simply mandated to pay the bill without being given control of the amount of the expenditure.

The Governor, in particular, has let loose a drum beat of rhetoric criticizing local government officials for out of control spending without acknowledging the significant role played by the State in the matter or the fact that he “balanced” the State’s budget on the backs of local government.