The Truth
When county officials met in their annual retreat last week, a topic that's come up several times in the past was revisited with city leaders -- avoiding duplication of services.
Yes, it's been talked about before, but it's never gone anywhere. As local government leaders struggle with how to cut millions of dollars from their budgets, streamlining looks more feasible each time they discuss it.
So this time, let's capitalize on it and move ahead.
But what does it mean exactly -- to avoid duplication of services? Well, each city and town and the county has a parks department, most have building and code enforcement departments and there are three 911 centers in Elkhart County. There are several planning and zoning departments as well.
And each one of these has separate rules, which often work against each other when companies come calling, a separate issue, but one that's important nonetheless.
By considering whether to form a single parks district that encompasses all the parks in Elkhart County, including those in the cities, it's possible to streamline administration and possibly some staff, thereby cutting down the costs. It also could lead to greater efficiency.
The same could be said for every duplicate department the cities and the county might try to combine.
At this point, it seems worth it to begin with parks, planning and zoning, building and code enforcement and 911 communications.
The key to making it work, of course, is getting the state to allow some movement of the tax levy with each entity into the larger organization -- not the whole thing, but at least some portion of it. There's no way that a parks service that encompasses all of the parks in the county could operate on the current Elkhart County Park and Recreation budget, for example.
The selling point for Elkhart County should be greater efficiency, especially for economic development purposes, in the areas of planning and zoning and building and code enforcement. With uniform standards throughout the county, the playing field is more level for a business seeking to locate or expand anywhere in Elkhart County. Now if everyone could just adopt the same tax abatement standards ...
The idea of consolidating 911 communications centers has been talked about, but rebuffed by the city of Elkhart. However, a state law passed last year mandates that counties may have no more than two centers within three years. Elkhart County has three -- the county's and one in Elkhart and Nappanee. It will be better for the residents of this county to decide what will be the best option than for the state to step in and decide for us by 2012.
We encourage city and county officials to immediately take the next step and work on a proposal to figure out how consolidation might work in these areas.