2008 Legislature

But numerous county officials expressed fear that too much power was being centralized in one person under a key recommendation calling for a single chief executive in each county.

“They would be king,” said Hamilton County Council President Brad Beaver.

That even concerned the man who would be king in Marion County — incoming Mayor Greg Ballard.

“Having too much power vested in one office may be a bit much,” he said.

The recommendation for a single chief executive, replacing the current three-member boards of commissioners that govern most of Indiana’s 92 counties, was among 27 proposals made by the bipartisan commission.

Among others: eliminating township government and shifting those duties to the county; replacing most county elected officials, including sheriffs, with appointees; consolidating school districts so none has fewer than 2,000 students; merging libraries into one countywide district; and forcing more cooperation and communication among public safety units.

The political odds against all 27 steps becoming law are steep, however, and the co-chairmen — former Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan, a Democrat, and Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard — said there would be no shortage of special interests lining up to declare the plan dead on arrival.

But they and others noted that Indiana has more government than most states in the nation, and that counties in other states have found cost savings through consolidation, though they couldn’t put a number on what Indiana might save.

Road map for consolidation

The commission was appointed in July by Gov. Mitch Daniels at the height of public angst over rising property taxes. Indiana, he said, had too many layers of government that were costing taxpayers too much money and made it difficult to pin responsibility on any one officeholder or group when spending spiraled out of control.

Tuesday, Kernan and Shepard said the recommendations, adopted unanimously by the seven members, would cut the number of elected officials by more than half, to 5,171 from the current 11,012.

And the number of local governmental units would be cut more than a third, to 1,931 from the current 3,086.

“If you want to get property taxes down and keep ’em down, this commission has given us a terrific road map for doing that,” Daniels said.

The legislative leaders who would have to follow that road map, though, were cautious in their reaction, praising the commission but acknowledging that there are plenty of political potholes that could knock the proposals off course.

House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said some proposals, such as eliminating township government, may be “politically impossible.”

Senate President Pro Tempore David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said that he was taken aback by the proposals to appoint, rather than elect, county officeholders, including the sheriff.

“It’s going to ruffle some feathers,” he said. “It’s obviously intended to.”

Both he and Bauer said the issue is too big, and the proposals too complex, for the legislature to tackle in the upcoming session, where the focus is already on major property tax reform. Lawmakers have only from Jan. 8 to March 14 to come up with a plan that cuts property taxes.

Lawmakers, Long said, should take time to weigh these ideas and can address them in the 2009 session.

Working in Pennsylvania

One key to winning support may be showing cost savings.

Shepard said the commission has not tallied those up. There was neither time, nor is there sufficient information to know how each county will address the proposals.
David Bottorff, executive director of the Association of Indiana Counties, said the group has already formed a committee that will meet Thursday to start trying to figure out the savings.

The experience in at least one Pennsylvania county that recently shifted to a single county executive has been positive, though.

Kevin Evanto, director of communications for Allegheny County, Pa., which includes Pittsburgh, said that county moved from a three-member board of commissioners, which combined executive and legislative functions, to a chief executive and county council government following a 1998 referendum.

Also, the county has consolidated some of its county offices, with the chief executive appointing some who used to be elected.

The changes were initially controversial, but the benefits have proven themselves, Evanto said.

The annual savings are estimated at more than $1 million, he said, with more expected as additional offices are consolidated in 2008.

Loyalty to the people

The idea of eliminating offices, however, got a mixed reaction here.
Marion County Clerk Beth White — who opposed making her office, which supervises elections, an appointed position — said the consolidation of power is at odds with the state’s “very strong local-control culture.”

“This is a bold move away from that,” she said.

Billie Caldwell, a Noblesville Township trustee in Hamilton County since 1979, worried that appointments would resurrect a system where patronage rather than qualifications land people jobs.

“The people that are in place in most of the townships, including assessors, do this because they feel loyalty to the people that elect them,” Caldwell said.

Marion County Treasurer Michael Rodman said he would not actively oppose any idea that could save money for taxpayers. But he said that there are tradeoffs.

“I’m not against any of this at first blush,” Rodman said. “(But) I have some concerns about this philosopher-king, the chief executive, who will be responsible for everything.”

While Marion County has had a single chief executive since Unigov combined city and county government, the state’s other 91 counties would undergo a major change.

Kernan and Shepard noted that the state has been debating many of these ideas since 1935, when another commission looked at government reform.

But with the current focus on property tax reform, Shepard said, “there is a window of opportunity here.”

Whether that window will stay open if the legislature comes up with major property tax reform in 2008 is, Shepard said, “the $64 question. We should strike while the iron is hot.”