Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform report released.

Eliminating nearly 6,000 elected positions and more than 1,000 units of government are two of the recommendations by a committee that studied ways to reform Indiana government.

The report includes 27 recommendations for making Indiana's local government more efficient, effective, understandable and accountable. It calls for changes in counties, cities, townships, libraries, schools and elsewhere.

Former Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard were co-chairman of the committee and released the results today.

If enacted, the recommendations would reduce the number of local government units from 3,086 to 1,931 - a 37 percent cut. It also would cut in half the number of elected officials from 11,012 to as few as 5,171.

More details on the commission's recommendations are expected to be reported later today.

Previous commissions in 1935 and 1970 outlined some of the same arguments as today for overhauling local governments, but the reports did not lead to drastic reforms.

"We want this effort to be different," Kernan and Shepard wrote in a letter to newspaper editors around the state. "We intend to offer bold and ambitious recommendations that lead to real change."

Part of the problem with local government in Indiana is that there's just too much of it, Daniels says.

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.

That can lead to confusion as to why property taxes are increasing and where the money goes. This point was made by the 1935 Indiana State Committee on Governmental Economy.

"The only effective check on bad government is public opinion," the committee wrote in its report. "Responsibility for government success or failure should be fixed and not diffused, so that the electors may deal intelligently with a clear cut issue."

It may have made sense to have very local government in the 1850s, when contacting or visiting the county seat or state capitol was far more difficult than it is now, said James Madison, a history professor at Indiana University.

But that government model had grown outdated by the 1930s, Madison said. Reform supporters back then said Indiana was living in the automobile age but stuck with a horse-and-buggy government.

Now Daniels is making a similar call to bring government into the information age.

"Despite the enormous economic, social, and technological changes that have occurred since that time, Indiana's system of local government would still be very recognizable to Hoosiers from the Civil War era of our history," Daniels wrote in his charge to the commission.

Indiana tends to prefer slow, evolutionary changes to radical revolutionary change, Madison said, although frustration about increasing property taxes might help rally some support for real reform.

"It takes a very, very big issue to even consider that kind of change," he said. "It's going to be a tough go."

Shepard and Kernan acknowledge that past reports have gone largely unheeded. They hope public support will help yield different results.

"Indiana has been wrestling with local government efficiency for more than 70 years, with little or no success," Kernan and Shepard wrote. "We're determined to change that.

"We intend to effect real change, not create another set of recommendations that never get implemented."

This has been out since the 1st week of December and for the sweeping changes it proposes there has been no discussion here and little anywhere else.

Short version is an elemination of the Township system in favor of a county chief executive and beefed up county council. Among other things, the school systems would lose their power to tax, fire departments would have a central funding source. There is some question as to how the Sheriff would fit into all of this.

My 1st gut reaction to this was to be against it. Really though, I just don't know. I have never considered the issue before now.

I would like to get a good discussion going here and maybe have some good comments to pass on to our legislature.

A critical qoute from the report.

Page 11

“Allow only elected officials to approve taxes and debt.

A citizen’s vote is his or her strongest tool for holding officials accountable for their decisions. Too many appointed boards and individuals hold fiscal power, thus removing them from the direct control of voters. By restricting such powers to elected officials, Indiana can give citizens a more direct line of authority over their officials. Appointed officials and boards will continue to provide appropriate services and support elected officials, but they will not directly levy taxes or take on debt. Voters can then hold elected officials accountable for the actions of the administrators they appoint.”

Needless to state, those elected officials whose positions would be eliminated are screaming very loudly as to how essential they are.

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