EVANSVILLE— It is a subjective question with a subjective answer — but it goes to the heart of the debate over Evansville-Vanderburgh County government consolidation.
How much government is too much?
Vanderburgh County voters will have two competing visions of local government from which to choose when they decide the fate of a referendum on consolidation on Election Day.
Supporters of consolidation say maintaining two local governments in one community is cumbersome and unwieldy, likening it to using more than one school system or library system. Opponents say the current city and county governmental structure — three bodies of elected officials plus one mayor — provides the necessary checks and balances to prevent any one of them from wielding too much power.
In a news conference Thursday, County Commissioner Joe Kiefer said elected officials in the separate city and county governing bodies take advantage of unnecessary layers of government.
"Right now there's a game that's played between city and county elected officials. City officials will say (to individuals seeking money), 'Well, you get something done from the county first. Then we'll look at it,'" said Kiefer, a longtime advocate of consolidation. "The county official says, 'Well, you get something done from the city first. Then we'll consider it.'
"It's a great strategy. It delays a lot of things. It puts off a lot of things. And it frustrates citizens."
Kiefer has been a member of the County Commissioners, county government's executive governing body, for 10 months. He also has served as a member of the City Council and the County Council, making him one of the few individuals to have served on all three elected bodies.
Kiefer cited the case of Congregations Acting for Justice and Empowerment, which sought money from city and county government last year for a Metropolitan Evansville Transit System bus route to serve the U.S. 41 corridor as far north as AmeriQual.
The County Council, county government's budget-writing body, told CAJE it could not afford the requested $150,000. Council members questioned whether the county should bear that large an annual expense by itself. They encouraged CAJE to also seek funding from city government, North Side employers and from grants.
CAJE activist Elliott Kavanaugh told the County Council in September 2011 that CAJE had been to all of those parties, and all were supportive.
"Even so, they too were waiting on the county to take action," he said.
Kavanaugh declined Thursday to take a stand on consolidation, but he was clear about his recollections of the experience.
"We did deal with multiple layers of government, and it made the situation more complicated because we had two different boards we were dealing with — with two different pots of money or maybe more than that," he said.
"It was difficult to get all the different elected representatives together, really."
But County Treasurer Rick Davis, an opponent of consolidation, said all that government serves an important purpose.
"Government was not meant to be efficient. Government was meant to be fair," Davis said. "There are departments in the Civic Center that exist as a check and balance for another department, to keep corruption out and keep somebody from running away with the kitty."
Davis cited as examples the county auditor and the county treasurer, the budget-writing County Council and the executive County Commissioners, and the two houses of the Legislature.
"If I have a whiz bang idea for the treasurer's office, I've got to go in front of the council and get funding for it. I've got to tell them, 'This is a really good thing,' and they can go, 'Great, here's your funding,'" Davis said. "But I've also got to go in front of the commissioners and convince them it's the right thing. And if they've got to sign a contract and they don't, I can have all the funding in the world and it doesn't matter.
"It's a check and a balance to make sure that I as an officeholder am doing the right things for the taxpayer, regardless of party."
Davis said there is wisdom in dispersing all the power of government between city and county governing and fiscal bodies rather than investing it all into a single 15-member Common Council and a mayor.
"We have already picked the low hanging fruit when it comes to consolidation and savings," he said, referring to local government departments that were merged years ago.
"This is not about money. This is about power."