Opponents of Evansville-Vanderburgh County merger want details

The wisdom of trying to decide those details before a government takes office is another issue altogether.

Opponents of the Nov. 6 referendum on consolidation argue that a budget, tax rates and salaries for a merged government should have been provided to Vanderburgh County voters before they cast their ballots. Otherwise, voters are being asked to buy a pig in a poke.

"Proponents of this plan (of reorganization) call it a skeleton plan with little detail and an outline of what final government would be. They expect you to trust them to fill in the blanks after you vote on it, and they will let you know what they decide," said Bruce Ungethiem, co-chairman of Citizens Opposed to Reorganization in Evansville.

Consolidation supporters counter the Plan of Reorganization was intended as a framework for a new government that would be elected in 2014 and take office in January 2015. They say specific policy decisions should be left to those elected to leadership positions in the merged government rather than unelected individuals. Candidates for the new government's 15-member Common Council and mayor would have to discuss such details in the 2014 campaign if they wanted to win, they say.

"If we had put all those details in there, (opponents) would have said it's inappropriate for the reasons we're citing," says Becky Kasha, chairwoman of the citizens committee that crafted a consolidation proposal in 2010. "Whatever's not in there, they would say they want to see — or they would have said, 'Oh look, you've tied the hands of the future governing body.'"

What opponents want

The 26-page Plan of Reorganization, adopted by the County Commissioners and the City Council last year, calls for elimination of those bodies and the County Council in favor of a single Common Council. Some city and county offices would be combined or eliminated.

The Evansville Police Department and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office would not merge. The merger of law enforcement could be considered in 10 years.

Ungethiem argues that a proper consolidation would have been preceded by a detailed fiscal impact study that would include a first year's budget, tax rates, employee salaries and specific cost savings to include workforce reductions. Such a plan would take about two years to put together, he said.

"Without a mandatory financial impact study, you don't know what potential savings there might be. You don't know what potential tax increases there might be. You don't know what the cost of transition from one government to the other is. You don't know what the salaries are going to be of the people in the new government — so you really don't know anything," he said. "So how do you expect a voter to intelligently vote on a proposition where none of that detail is in the plan?"

The problem with that argument, critics say, is that it would give enormous power to unelected individuals in advance of elected officials assuming their positions.

Before they can submit budgets to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance so that agency can set tax rates, local governments must have assessed values and budgets in place with details about projected expenses and levies — the amount of revenue needed from property taxes.

Courtney L. Schaafsma, budget director for the state agency, said most of what anti-consolidation activists want is impossible.

"It would be possible to come up with an estimated budget, levy and tax rate, but it certainly would not be possible to come up with the actual numbers at this stage of the game," Schaafsma said.

"Before being able to come up with the actual budget numbers, the reorganized entity will need to request a new maximum levy (the amount a consolidated government would ask the Department of Local Government Finance to allow it to collect from property taxes) through the Department. Once that number is established, then you would also need to have actual assessed values and sufficient detail on how the reorganized government will function to be able to come up with the actual budgets, levies and rates."

The comments echoed those of Vanderburgh County Auditor Joe Gries, who told the Courier & Press in September that projecting assessed values, budgets or tax levies is a "rolling process" that is hard to predict from year to year.

Crowe Horwath, an Indianapolis-based public accounting and consulting firm, also told consolidation planners in 2010 that economic conditions could affect property tax levies, income tax revenues and other revenues available to provide services in a consolidated government.

There is another problem. Budgets may not be passed as part of a consolidation plan approved by referendum, according to City Corp. Counsel Ted Ziemer Jr.

Ziemer, who represented the County Commissioners when the petition drive was conducted in 2009, said local government budgets in Indiana must be generated by legally constituted fiscal bodies such as the City Council and the County Council.

"The people don't enact the budget; the elected bodies do," Ziemer said.

A constitutional comparison

Much of the debate over the Plan of Reorganization has focused on the document's value as a model for governance. Each side has invoked the U.S. Constitution, commonly considered a masterpiece of legislative drafting.

Asked about consolidation supporters' charge that the detailed fiscal plan he advocates would have to be generated by individuals other than a new government's elected officials, Ungethiem noted the framers of the Constitution were unelected.

But consolidation opponents are not as casual about the role of unelected officials in a consolidated government.

In a Sept. 26 televised debate, Ungethiem sounded alarm bells about the prospect of "appointed bureaucrats" shaping policy in a merged government. He singled out the Plan of Reorganization's provisions for a deputy mayor, director of budget and finance, public information officer, legal counsel and supporting staff.

"These are all appointed positions, not elected positions," he said that night. "These positions will actually set policy at the direction of the mayor and will not report to or have any elective kind of reporting structure to the voters, and we think that's a very dangerous situation."

Ungethiem said the U.S. Constitution is a good model for consolidation planners.

"They didn't ratify it and then say, 'We'll figure it out later,'" he said. "That's what we want here. We want it put in place, everything put into detail, and then the citizens would have the ability to say, 'Yes, I agree with that,' or, 'No, I don't.'"

County Commissioner Joe Kiefer, a longtime leader in the pro-consolidation movement, draws a different parallel with the Constitution.

Kiefer notes that the historic document is just six pages in all, while the Declaration of Independence is written on a single page. He said the Declaration and the Constitution were frameworks, not detailed mandates dictating budgets and salaries.

"They're short documents," he said. "What do (consolidation opponents) expect this Plan of Reorganization to do? Do they expect it to address how to handle the Roberts Stadium issue?"

Dr. Nicholas LaRowe, a University of Southern Indiana professor whose teaching includes theory and concepts of the Constitution, said the framers of the Constitution wrote in detail about some things and more generally about others.

"The framers were scared of some things, like legislative tyranny," LaRowe said. "Article 1 (which deals with the legislative branch of government) is very, very detailed, and they try very, very hard to kind of pin down and hem in powers of Congress so that it doesn't have much room for mischief."

But Article 3, which addresses the judicial branch, is far more general.

"Only the Supreme Court is mentioned, and the framers and the delegates that wrote the Constitution left a lot up to future Congresses to sort out," LaRowe said. "That was due on the one hand to the fact that they couldn't agree on much, and the other hand, that they weren't really too worried about the courts as a source of tyranny — so they didn't think it was worth their time to spell out all the details."

No budgets, tax rates or salaries are specified in the Constitution — but the framers did establish that the Congress may not lower salaries for federal judges.

"The Constitution gives the power to Congress, with one guideline — they can't lower it," LaRowe said.

"What judges' salaries are going to be, when and if there are raises, how much they're going to be — all that's up to Congress."