News reports on a legislative committee hearing today on local government restructuring suggests that circus music should have been playing. Mary Beth Schneider, reporting for the Indianapolis Star, has a story on today’s four hour hearing in the House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee. Characterizing the hearing as “sometimes bizarre,” I got the sense that the General Assembly should put its own house in order before looking to fix local government.

The proposals to eliminate or at least reshape township government — including legislation that would have created a single county executive in each county and consolidated library districts –will now remain dormant for the remainder of this session unless they can be revived in the final days, when the Senate and House negotiate final versions of bills.
. . .
[After various shenanigans amending the bill,] [W]hen it came time to vote on the bill itself, a revamped Senate Bill 452 which now included all the reforms, only one Democrat, Rep. John Barnes of Indianapolis, voted for it, with the other six Democrats and one Republican voting no.

The remainder of the Republicans walked out, demanding the right to caucus and discuss the vote privately.

Afterward, both parties accused the other of political games to kill the reforms.

Update Jim Shella has more on the chaotic hearing on the local government restructuring bill. He seems to attach a bit of significance to the fact that most of the committee Republicans didn’t actually vote against “the governor’s proposal.” I think it is significant that none of them actually voted for it.

Lesley Stedman Weidenbener is reporting that SB 506 was passed out of committee. SB 506 mandates change in local government structure for counties other than Marion County.

SB 506 would give counties two options:

[1] The county council would become the legislative branch of county government, and voters would elect a county executive, who would appoint people to handle various government functions. The structure would be similar to a city’s mayor and council.

[2] The commissioners and council would be scrapped in favor of a seven-member board of supervisors, which would handle executive, fiscal and legislative functions and appoint a county manager to handle day-to-day tasks. That would be similar to the structure of town government.

County commissioners would have the authority to make the choice this fall or they could leave the decision to their constituents, who would vote on it next year. They could not choose to maintain the current structure.

SB 379, introduced by Senator Boots, provides for a county to elect to transform its governing structure. To do this, the Board of County Commissioners must adopt an ordinance calling for the reorganization of county government such that a unitary executive will replace the three member board of commissioners and assume all of the executive powers of the county. In turn, the fiscal body will become the legislative body and assume all of the legislative authority previously exercised by the board of commissioners.

To become effective, the proposed reorganization must be approved by the voters at an election in an even-numbered year. If approved, two years later, the voters would vote on the first single-member executive.