Brian Howey: Building a new Indiana government … from scratch

By Brian Howey

FRANKLIN, Ind. -  I sat at a table with a Franklin city councilman, the city clerk, a librarian, an activist from Union County with a population of 7,000, and Mark Lawrence of the Indiana Chamber, who lives in Indianapolis with a population of more than 700,000.

They were participating in the final Blue Ribbon Commission on Local Government Reform held last Wednesday night at Franklin College. They pondered what a government for a 21st Century Indiana and beyond might look like. Or, as former secretary of state and Blue Ribbon Commissioner Sue Anne Gilroy told me, “We have an opportunity to create a government from scratch.” That’s opposed to the notion that if we have a problem – and we do, which is reflected in your property tax bill – we just slap another patch on the old jalopy.

I’d prefer a hybrid government that is sleek, fast, and efficient while it covers the bases of security, education, and transportation. It must provide a strong social safety net. And it must be affordable.

The forums were an excellent exercise in civic duty. Instead of people streaming to a microphone for two hours, and saying the same things over and over, this forum had people seated at 12 tables where they selected a “reporter” and a “recorder.” They spent the two hours discussing their current government and asking themselves: what services are critical to the success of my community and family; what can be done to streamline local governments and their services; and what is the biggest impact local government has – both positive and negative – in delivering services? At the end of the breakout groups, each table provided their top three recommendations for government reform.

Of the 100 or so people at Franklin College, a good number were local and state elected officials, like six-year Franklin City Councilman Ken Austin. “We have so many layers of government,” Austin said at the round table. “We get so bogged down. We are so slow to react.” Franklin is in Johnson County, which Clerk Janet Alexander described as once believing that they were at the backdoor at Indianapolis. “We’re at the front door of Indianapolis now,” she said.

Alexander gets calls for “every clerk” in Johnson County. “People don’t understand it. The layers of government make it very difficult.”

Beverly Martin, director of the Johnson County Public Library, said, “We see the state as too patriarchal” and failing to provide many of the basics. She said that at one time, Indiana had interurban mass transit to many communities “and now they don’t exist.” Martin believes that government reform should come from the “ground up.”

This is the same concept Gov. Mitch Daniels has pleaded with city and county officials to embrace for the past several years. He’s said time and again to begin “reforming yourselves” and now, essentially that reform is going to happen through the Blue Ribbon Commission headed by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard.

I liked what Martin said. “I would leave the definition of a community open. It can be any size and any shape.”

When the various tables reported what they recorded, one recommendation was this: don’t replace the current template we have with another one. Some rural counties, for instance, may be best served with a township trustee. Or as one man put it, in some counties, the surveyor is deemed one of the most important offices.

Our table’s Union County representative, Mae Hubbard, felt that townships were a layer of government she had little interaction with. Hubbard’s concern was her local school corporation, where she says the board members will spend a mere two hours on a budget the superintendent presents and have had five years of deficits. Councilman Austin – like the dozens of councilmen and women I covered as a reporter in Elkhart and Fort Wayne – spends exhaustive hours going through every facet of their city budgets.

That’s why I don’t buy into Gov. Daniels perception that local governments are spendthrifts.

Here’s another broad plea from Franklin: “Stop the unfunded mandates.” Another suggestion was to elect library boards so the public can hold them accountable. Some thought school districts should conform to government districts as opposed to the overlap we now have. A number of people thought that the county recorders, auditors and treasurers should be combined into a “controller.” There were calls to do away with electing county coroners and have a regional medical examiner. Some even talked of reducing the number of counties.

As the Blue Ribbon Commission prepares what I believe will be a historic report and call for action this December, there is increasing evidence that change – perhaps even profound change – is possible.

Becky Williams of the Indiana Assessors Association proposed consolidating the 1,008 township assessors into 10 statewide districts that would still provide local offices. And Debbie Driskoll from the Indiana Township Association acknowledged at a Blue Ribbon round table in New Albany that consolidation might be in order “where it makes sense.”

If you could create an Indiana government from scratch, what would it look like? Even though the forums are over, you can still weigh in by calling 317-261-3025 or e-mailing ideas to lgreform@iu.edu.

Howey is publisher of The Howey Political Report at www.howeypolitics.com

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