Daniels announces local government reform agenda

BY PATRICK GUINANE, Times of Northwest Indiana
pguinane@nwitimes.com

INDIANAPOLIS | Gov. Mitch Daniels announced Friday he will push state lawmakers to do away with townships, put a single executive in charge of county government and consolidate school districts with fewer than 1,000 students.

Read the governor's full proposal and listen to audio from this morning's news conference

The Republican governor said he is endorsing about 16 of the 27 local government reforms recommend a year ago by a blue-ribbon commission led by former Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard. The General Assembly began work on a handful of the recommendations last year.

Daniels called the proposed changes "long overdue" during a Statehouse news conference Friday morning.

Among the governor's recommendations:

• Replace three-member boards of county commissioners with one elected executive per county.

• Shift some legislative duties from commissioners to county councils. Allow unspecified increases in member ship of county councils to "ensure sufficient representation" for rural, suburban and urban constituents.

• Abolish elections for county assessor, treasurer, recorder, surveyor and coroner and give the county executive power to fill those posts. (The offices of county clerk, auditor, sheriff and prosecutor would remain elected.)

• Abolish township government. Transfer responsibilities to the county executive.

• Consolidate school districts with fewer than 1,000 students (Kernan-Shepard Commission set bar a 2,000 students.)