By Bryan Corbin, Evansville Courier & Press
INDIANAPOLIS - The state Senate has passed one of the Kernan-Shepard bills to restructure local government.
Senate Bill 452 makes several changes to city-government elections. It passed the Senate, 32-18 and goes next to the Indiana House.
The bill would do the following:
-Move municipal elections from odd-numbered years to non-presidential even-numbered years to coincide with county elections, starting in 2014.
-Prohibit police and firefighters from being elected to councils in the city or town that employs them. Current officeholders would be grandfathered in.
-Give counties the options of holding their elections in regional "vote centers."
-Move nonpartisan school board elections from the May primary to the November general election.
State Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, voted yes on Senate Bill 452. Voting no were local senators Bob Deig, D-Mount Vernon, Lindel Hume, D-Princeton, Richard Young, D-Milltown, and John Waterman, R-Shelburn.
A series of government-restructuring bills advocated by Gov. Mitch Daniels that are now before the state Senate are based on the findings of the Kernan-Shepard Commission. Co-chaired by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard, the commission recommended streamlining county offices, eliminating township offices and consolidating the smallest school districts and libraries.
Senate Bill 452 is the first of the Kernan-Shepard bills to emerge from either chamber of the Legislature. Another Kernan-Shepard bill was substantially changed today: Senate Bill 506, that originally would have converted the three county commissioners to a single elected county executive.
An amendment that senators approved by voice vote today instead sets up a complicated multi-step process for reorganizing county government.
First, the county commissioners would have to decide whether to reorganize - either into a single county executive or a seven-member board of supervisors - or to leave the question to voters in a 2010 referendum.
If the question goes to voters, then the referendum would give them two choices: either a seven-member county board of supervisors or the status quo, the three commissioners. A single county executive would not be an option, under the wording approved today.
Moreover, voters themselves could also put the county reorganization question on the ballot in 2012, through a petition drive, the bill now says.
Senate Bill 506 now is eligible for a final vote before the state Senate later this week. Other Kernan-Shepard bills still await committee votes.