Evansville Courier & Press
In the name of property tax relief, the Indiana Legislature dealt a serious blow to township government in Indiana during the session it just completed. The relief package designed to reduce taxes by one-third included the elimination of township assessor positions in most of the state's 1,008 townships.
It was a historical and courageous decision, given Indiana's continued reliance on an archaic township government system that has far outlived its usefulness.
We have oft heard it said that the township government lobby is so powerful in Indiana that lawmakers never would dare attempt to eliminate it, even though its true need ended with the creation of the modern automobile, telephones and the Internet.
We applaud the Legislature for sensing the mood of the public for smaller government and taking this bold step.
It will work this way: On July 1, the duties of township assessors will be transferred to the state's 92 county assessors. But for the 42 largest townships with 15,000 parcels or more, voters will decide in local referendums in November whether to keep or eliminate the positions. In Vanderburgh County, that means we will have a referendum on assessor positions in Knight, Pigeon and Center townships.
As remarkable as the Legislature's decision on township assessors was, however, it should be merely a precursor to even greater efficiencies for local government in Indiana. Indeed, we would suggest that given the mood of the public, the time is right for further streamlining of local government.
With that in mind, we would call your attention to the report prepared by a commission headed by Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard and former Gov. Joe Kernan in late 2007. Among its recommendations, it would replace the three county commissioners with one elected county executive, make most county offices - including sheriff and treasurer - appointed positions, give the county council legislative duties, create a countywide body to oversee public safety services, require any school district with fewer than 2,000 students to consolidate, and transfer all township functions to county government.
In fact, a bill to replace three elected county commissioners with one elected county executive was introduced, but failed, in this year's session. That's understandable. The Legislature, in a short session, had its hands full with its No. 1 priority of property tax relief. It had no business taking up major changes in the structure of government, outside of the township provision in the tax bill.
But next year is another story. In the next session, the Legislature should make the restructuring of local government for greater efficiency a top priority.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who proposed much of this year's property tax relief package, said at session's end that he wants to focus in 2009 on the recommendations of the Kernan-Shepard Commission.
At a news conference on March 14, he was asked whether he would pursue the issue in the next session.
"I certainly plan to embrace that report, speak to it, hope to excite our fellow citizens about the new era of reform that that report points toward," he said.
He said some elements of the Kernan-Shepard report were in this year's tax bill, and he hopes next year there will be a bipartisan effort to work on other parts of the commission's report.
As you have probably noticed, the Kernan-Shepard recommendations would pretty much finish off township government, eliminating township trustees.
Of course, in Evansville and Vanderburgh County our issues of duplication of services go beyond the commission recommendations on county commissioners. We have a matched set of governments. We have a city government with a mayor and a city council, and an overlapping county government with three commissioners and a county council. Given the size and nature of this county, we could get along quite fine with only one of each.
But the latter is an issue for city and county residents and leaders. Past efforts at total consolidation of city and county government have fizzled, despite a level of duplication that never would be tolerated in a successful business.
As for the Legislature next year, please make the Kernan-Shepard report a priority for consideration. As lawmakers learned this year, the timing and the public mood are right for reform.
Could they be right for city-county consolidation as well?