Evansville Courier & Press
Local Indiana government has been the target of much of this year's major reform efforts initiated by state government.
First, Gov. Mitch Daniels proposed a package of initiatives designed to reduce the burden of property taxes. Included is a proposal to put limits on local government spending and to require referendums on major building projects.
Then, earlier this week, the Shepard/Kernan commission appointed by Daniels came in with sweeping recommendations on reducing the size of county governments and ending township government in Indiana.
We take a positive view of this report, and we'll have more to say about it on Sunday. However, the thought occurred to us that it might be fruitful eventually to follow up this study with a similar look at state government. Some spending responsibilities of local government would be shifted to the state under the commission's proposals, but they do not address the streamlining of state government, as they do local government.
One specific proposal we would offer is to at least make the superintendent of public instruction an appointed position. Indiana now elects its state school superintendent, even though most governors in recent decades have appointed educational advisers to their staffs.
Consequently, we have elected superintendents who formulate their own education policy for the state, and we have a second state employee advising the governor on education policy.
If the superintendent and the governor are of the same party - as we have now - it can work fairly well in terms of coordinating policy.
Yet it makes little sense for Hoosiers to be paying for two education officials, particularly when most major education policy decisions rightly flow from the governor's office.
If the governor could appoint his own school superintendent, it would make for a more cohesive educational policy for the state.
Voters could still vote yea or nay on the school superintendent in their judgment of the elected governor.
Some years ago, there was an initiative - strongly supported by this newspaper - to make the school superintendent an appointed post, but it never caught on with the public, or with the Legislature.
However, now, with the focus on the reform and the cost of government in Indiana, such a proposal might find a more receptive public.
Daniels, on a recent visit with Courier & Press editors and staff members, indicated he would be receptive to such a proposal for an appointed school super-intendent.
And while we are at it, why not take a look at appointing some of the other elected state officials, among them auditor, treasurer and secretary of state. In the past we have suggested the same for those offices, with a similar lack of interest by officials or the public.
But maybe now, with heightened interest in the cost and reform of local government, it will be an opportune time for a study group similar to the Shepard/Kernan commission to take a look at state government.