INDIANAPOLIS — A state Senate panel on Friday approved a measure that would eliminate townships’ three-member advisory boards and hand their fiscal oversight duties over to county councils.
As similar legislation moves forward across the hallway in the Indiana House of Representatives, the measure appears to have some momentum this year.
Ahead of the Senate Local Government Committee’s 7-1 vote for Senate Bill 405, its author, Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville, cited a list of statistics that she said demonstrated the ineffectiveness of township government.
One of those identified Gibson County’s Wabash Township, which covers 23 residents. She said 61 percent of townships served 25 or fewer people in 2009, and 71 percent of township races went uncontested in the 2010 elections.
Lawson’s bill also would give the state’s Department of Local Government Finance more authority to reject townships’ budgets if required accounting documents aren’t filed each year.
Critics such as Gov. Mitch Daniels have cited widely varying rules on who township trustees can provide with poor relief, a lack of oversight by the 1,006 townships’ advisory boards, and large cash balances totaling nearly $300 million statewide, as they have pushed for changes.
Mark Lawrance, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s senior vice president of foundations and operations, said his organization would like to see townships eliminated once and for all.
But if lawmakers are not going to do that, he said, Lawson’s bill is a step forward. He said it puts some teeth in the state’s requirement that townships file annual financial reports, assistance reports and salary reports.
“If we’re going to keep the system, I think this bill goes a long way to correct some of the problems that are as obvious as the day is long,” he said.
J.D. Strouth, an advisory board in Knight Township, did not testify in person Friday, but sent his comments to the committee via e-mail.
Strouth said he ran for the office in 2010 saying that if elected, he’d ask legislators to eliminate his office. He said doing so could help Knight Township save some of the money that former trustee Linda K. Durham cost them by misappropriating thousands of dollars.
“If township boards were abolished, hardly anyone would notice because township services would continue to be provided as usual. Transferring township board duties to county fiscal bodies should result in greater accountability and tremendous cost savings,” his statement said.
Opponents were lined up to criticize the bill, as well.
Debbie Driskell, president of the Indiana Township Association, said townships’ expense to taxpayers is miniscule compared to the benefits they provide.
She said decisions about local government should be made at the local level.
“We think this effort is in some capacity driven by an unfair campaign started several years ago and driven by many local media,” she said.
Driskell said since townships often make cash purchases on capital items, such as ambulances, their balances appear larger than they actually are.
“Our true administrative costs are closer to pennies on the dollar than what you have been told,” she said. “If it’s broke, let’s fix it, but I encourage you to use the knife of a surgeon, rather than an ax.”
Ken Gilliam, the fire chief in Noblesville and the legislative chairman of the Indiana Fire Chiefs Association, said he is afraid counties might force the consolidation of some township fire departments for reasons based on finances, rather than quality of service.
“Those who control the money control the operation of organizations,” he said.
Such mergers, he said, would scatter career firefighters “far afield” as they do work previously done by townships’ volunteer firefighters. That wouldn’t save money, he said.
“There’s not this huge overlap of resources out there that we’re going to be able to consolidate,” he said.
Katrina Hall, the Indiana Farm Bureau’s tax and local government specialist, said farmers favor some of the bill’s enforcement pieces, but oppose its call for the elimination of advisory boards.
“As much as anything, our members see that as the first step toward eliminating township government and going to countywide rates for the kinds of services that townships are providing,” she said.