| Frequently asked questions |
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS A: In summer of 2007, Gov. Mitch Daniels asked his predecessor, former Gov. Joe Kernan, and Chief Justice Randall Shepard of the Indiana Supreme Court to head a commission to study local government in Indiana and find ways to make it more responsive to the 21st century.
The commission, staffed by the Indiana University Center for Urban Policy and the Environment, met frequently over the next several months, took testimony and conducted research. It delivered its report to Daniels in December 2007.
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A: The structure of local government in Indiana has been questioned almost since Indiana became a state in 1816. And it has remained fundamentally unchanged since 1851, when the state adopted its second constitution, which is in effect today.
At the time that the blue-ribbon commission was formed, Indiana had:
· 92 counties
· 117 cities
· 239 library districts
· 293 school districts, ranging in size from 156 students to 37,000 students
· 451 towns
· 886 special districts
· 1,008 townships
· 1,100 officials with the responsibility to assess property
· 2,730 local units of government that could levy property taxes
· 10,300 local officials
· More townships that all but eight states in the nation.
Only nine states have more units of local government than Indiana has, 18 have more school districts and 13 have more library districts. Thirty-one states have no township government and, of the 19 states that have it, only eight have more than Indiana’s 1,008 townships.
A typical Hoosier pays property taxes to at least five different taxing units, and often many more. And the typical Hoosier lives with the decisions of 26 elected local officials, most of whom have authority to tax.
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A: The commission was led by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Chief Justice Randall Shepard of the Indiana Supreme Court. Its members were:
· Sue Anne Gilroy, vice president of development at St. Vincent Hospital, executive director of the St. Vincent Foundation and former Indiana secretary of state.
· Adam Herbert, former president of Indiana University.
· Louis Mahern, former state senator and former chairman of the Indianapolis-Marion County Library Board.
· Ian Rolland, retired chairman and chief executive officer of Lincoln Financial Group and board chairman of NiSource.
· John Stafford, director of the Community Research Institute at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. He served more than 20 years in Fort Wayne and Allen County government.
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A: The commission reviewed previous proposals, dating back nearly 75 years, and best-practice reports from other states. It also heard from citizens – city dwellers and rural residents alike – experts who study local government and people who work in it. More than 700 citizens made suggestions at forums held in Evansville, Franklin, Fort Wayne, Gary, New Albany and South Bend and 1,500 comments were submitted by e-mail or voicemail.
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A: The commission produced a comprehensive study of county and township government and school and library systems. It made 27 recommendations of ways to make those units more cost-effective, efficient, transparent and accountable.
To read the commission report, click here.
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A: With local government reform, we can:
· Help hard-working, well-meaning public servants provide the highest quality of service to their constituents.
· Streamline local government so dollars are used to improve services, not pay for excessive administration.
· Hold local government more accountable.
· Better address modern needs.
· Ensure that all Hoosiers have access to essential services.
· Realize more cost-efficiency.
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A: There were five recurring themes:
· Reduce the number of local officials and local units of government.
· Allow only elected officials to approve taxes and debt.
· Assign administrative responsibilities to appointed professionals, not elected politicians, and ensure professional qualifications and performance standards.
· Provide state funding for state services.
· Support and encourage local governments in their reform and efficiency efforts.
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A: Government should be:
· Simpler
· More understandable
· More responsive
· More transparent
· Flexible.
Government reform should:
· Drive cost-savings and create more equitable distribution of services and responsibility to fund them
· Provide practical, concrete, common-sense, long-term solutions
· Position Indiana for future efficiency and growth.
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A: The 2008 General Assembly took up several of the recommendations, including requiring counties to have no more than two public safety access points, the 911 dispatch centers.
Unfortunately, 11 counties have more than two such centers but have not announced plans to consolidate. They are Allen, Clark, Elkhart, Johnson, Lake, Lawrence, Madison, Marion, Morgan, St. Joseph and Wabash.
The legislature also shifted property-assessment duties from the township assessor to the county assessor in 965 of the state’s 1,008 townships. It set up referenda in the remaining townships, those with 15,000 or more property parcels. Those referenda were held last Nov. 4. Voters in 30 of the 43 townships with referenda chose to shift assessing duties from the township to the county. Of the other 13 townships, eight were in Lake County, where the public education effort by reform advocates was drowned out in the massive Chicago media market.
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RECOMMENDATIONS BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
A: Senate Bill 348, authored by Sen. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield, establishes a public library service planning committee in each county. This committee would adopt and implement a service model for the county.
SB 452, authored by Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville, enacts a number of Kernan-Shepard recommendations that deal with elections. The bill:
· moves the election of municipal officers to even-numbered years;
· provides that an employee of a governmental unit is considered to have resigned his or her job if he or she is elected to office in that governmental unit;
· gives counties the option of using vote centers, which are polling places where any county resident may vote, without regard for precincts.;
· moves the election of school board members selected to general elections; and
· provides that the legislative body of a second class city appoints the city clerk and that the mayor of a third class city appoints the city clerk-treasurer.
SB 506, authored by Sen. Phil Boots, R-Crawfordsville, establishes a single elected county executive and a co-equal county council to serve as a legislative body. Marion County is exempted from this bill.
SB 512, authored by Sen. Lawson, abolishes the offices of township trustee and township board member and moves their responsibilities to the county executive.
SB 521, authored by Sen. Gary Dillon, R-Pierceton, requires school corporations with fewer than 500 students to merge with another school corporation and requires those with 500 to 999 students to demonstrate that they meet academic standards established by the state Department of Education.
Senate Joint Resolution 7, authored by Sens. Phil Boots, R-Crawfordsville, and Connie Lawson, R-Danville, would remove the offices of county recorder, treasurer, coroner and surveyor from the Constitution.
To become effective, a resolution must pass two consecutive general assemblies and be ratified by the voters in a subsequent election. If SJR 7 passes this year, it must again be passed by the 2011 or 2012 General Assembly, and it likely would be on the ballot in November 2012.
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WHY THESE CHANGES MAKE SENSE
A: In a nutshell, the reforms would:
· Save money
· Make government more efficient, transparent, effective and accountable to the people who fund it
o Schools
· Fulfill the will of the people.
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A: Streamlining local government in Indiana will, in fact, save significant money. A study released in late January by the Ball State University Bureau of Business Research said that $400 million to $622 million could be saved annually if local government were streamlined as suggested by the Kernan-Shepard Commission.
The COMPETE study by the Indiana Project for Efficient Local Government, conducted in 1999 and updated in 2004, suggested savings of $80 million – and that was based on less specific suggestions than subsequently emerged from the Kernan-Shepard Commission. A study by the University of Chicago found that 10 percent of local government budgets is spent on redundant, overlapping bureaucracy that could safely be streamlined to realize savings.
We’ve already seen results. The Hancock County assessor has said that consolidation of assessing duties, as recommended by Kernan-Shepard, saved her county $95,000 this year and will save $150,000 next. The Indianapolis controller estimated savings of at least $3 million when township assessing duties were shifted to the county. Already, Marion County saved $400,000 this year by reducing the outgoing township assessors’ pay and will realize more when their $27,500 salaries and benefits are eliminated from the books next year.
Kosciusko County officials estimate they saved $500,000 by merging two public safety access points in 1999, and they’ve maintained the same budget since 2000. Cass County and Logansport officials estimated a savings of $400,000 when they merged their public safety dispatch centers.
Clearly, those savings are significant, especially at a time when budgets for local government are stretched more tightly than ever. As a homeowner, you probably were pleased when you saw that your more recent property tax bill was lower than the previous one. And next year, it will be even lower. That great news has a downside: the local government units that depend on property tax revenue to function will experience a decrease in that revenue. We think it makes sense to reduce overhead to accommodate that revenue decline before considering cutting services.
As important as those savings are, there’s another, equally important reason to adopt the Kernan-Shepard recommendations: good government. The form of our local government, adopted more than 150 years ago, has failed to keep up with the needs and the technology of the 21st century. It is opaque, unresponsive and inaccessible. Citizens often do not know who to see or how to get their problems solved. They rarely know the names of the officeholders who affect their lives. Voters who make it all the way to the bottom of the ballot, more often than not, are greeted by unopposed candidates running for obscure offices.
If we can make government more accountable, transparent and efficient, citizens’ confidence in government will increase. And that’s good for everybody.
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A: Indiana’s founders probably had sound reason to establish a system with 13 separately elected county officials, including three commissioners with both executive and legislative power, but no power over the other 10. But that reason escapes us today, and if we were starting from scratch to create a government or a business, we would not choose such an arrangement, which allows for massive passing the buck and indecision.
We think it makes much more sense to have a single county executive who would be elected to set policy, guide county government and oversee its function. Citizens can turn to this person, who would replace the current three-person board of commissioners, when they don’t get satisfaction from appointed administrators.
The county council, now with limited power to handle some fiscal responsibilities, would be strengthened so that it would be a full-fledged legislative body, providing the checks and balances on the executive branch. Most members would be elected to represent a particular district within the county, but several would be elected at large.
There is nothing quite like Indiana’s current arrangement for county government. Fortunately, there are ample examples to demonstrate the success of the arrangement called for in the Kernan-Shepard reforms. Our president and the Congress; our governor and the General Assembly; and our cities’ mayors and city councils work in tandem for the public good.
If citizens understand their government and know how to access it for help, they are better served and more likely to take an interest in government and voting. That, in turn, will result in high-quality candidates and opposed races that give voters a choice. And that’s good for our democracy.
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A: No. Indiana, unlike any other state in the nation, divides fiscal and other legislative policy-making between two county entities – the board of commissioners and the county council.
Our odd form of government happened in a haphazard way. Indiana’s counties originally were governed by three-member boards of commissioners (as well as more row officers – the recorder, surveyor and the like – than all but one other state). It seems strange now that no one individual was put in charge, but our founders probably had their reasons.
Still, this awkward arrangement lacked accountability, and corruption became rampant at the end of the 19th century. Instead of fixing the problem by establishing one leader with whom the buck stopped, Indiana compounded it by creating a fiscal oversight body, the county council. This, according to an expert at the National Association of Counties, creates confusion.
No wonder! The commissioners, for example, prepare part of the county budget and recommend salaries for the officeholders, among many other duties. Along with the county treasurer, they also serve as the county’s board of finance. But the council fixes tax rates and salaries, incurs debt and imposes the tax levy. Sorting that out takes a score card.
Of course, it’s also strange to have three commissioners. As Gov. Daniels points out, companies don’t have three CEOs and armies don’t have three commanding generals. That’s why he supports the Kernan-Shepard recommendation for a single county executive and a co-equal legislative body, the county council. ___________________________________________________________________________________________
A: There is neither a Democratic way nor a Republican way to record a deed. Or declare someone dead. Or cut a check or invest the public’s money. Nor is there a Democratic or Republican method of assessing the worth of your home for property tax purposes.
Expertise, training and experience are the only qualifications that citizens should seek from the individuals who fill non-policymaking positions such as county recorder, coroner, surveyor, treasurer and assessor.
But every four years, Hoosier voters choose between political candidates for each of those administrative positions. Many voters do not even know the candidates’ names before they see the ballot. If they do recognize a name, it may be the result of the musical chairs we see in so many counties – officials rotating through a series of county elective offices, running out the two-term limit in one before moving to another office.
If the elected surveyor, treasurer, assessor, coroner or recorder turns out to be a disaster, citizens have to wait until the next election to “fire” him or her.
These jobs should be held by professionals who have the education, training and experience to do the job. To make that happen, the Kernan-Shepard Commission recommended they be appointed by the county executive, with whom the buck would stop.
The commission members heard stories about frustrated citizens who needed help from county government but were treated badly, got the run-around and found no ultimate authority whose decision was final. They also heard about the irritating inconveniences that this arrangement may cause: because each officeholder is responsible only for his or her office, hours and days of business may vary. Citizens who have business in more than one office may find one open, another closed, at any given time.
Many of these problems could be solved if professionals were appointed to perform administrative jobs.
___________________________________________________________________________________________ A: It’s important that we give our youths every opportunity to compete for 21st-century jobs in a global economy. Unfortunately, smaller school corporations often cannot offer their students the same courses and facilities that larger districts offer, putting their students at a competitive disadvantage for college entrance or job preparation.
It makes sense to reduce overhead – administrators’ salaries, the cost to operate administrative buildings, etc. – to push more money into the classroom. Indeed, districts with fewer than 1,000 students spend 32 percent more on administrative cost per student than their larger counterparts, which spent – on average -- $108 less per student on administrative costs in fiscal 2007.
Academically speaking, youths have a better chance of getting into the nation’s best colleges and universities when they take advanced placement courses and score well on their examinations. Statistics demonstrate the competitive disadvantage for students in smaller districts. Across Indiana, students pass an average of 53 AP exams. In districts with fewer than 1,000 students, however, students pass only three.
School corporations with more than 1,000 students typically offer five AP courses, but those with fewer students offer two. The larger districts offer twice as many world language courses as the smaller ones. Districts with more than 1,000 students typically offer two more advanced math courses and three more science courses than their smaller counterparts.
We can, and should, do better for all of our kids.
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A: We have no way of knowing what was in the minds of that survey’s respondents. But we’re concerned that the general public may not be getting the correct story about this recommendation. We’ve seen numerous headlines – and even the body of some stories – that incorrectly mention “school consolidation.” That scares people. Neither the Kernan-Shepard Commission nor Gov. Daniels advocates consolidating schools, only the administrative functions of the 46 districts with fewer than 1,000 students.
In fact, the legislation supported by Gov. Daniels will specifically prohibit closure of a high school for five years after consolidation of administrative offices. That means the Tinseltown Tigers and the Anton Aardvarks can remain archrivals, even if they end up in the same school corporation with the same superintendent.
We were struck by the responses to another question on that survey. Half the respondents said that consolidating school districts would expand learning opportunities for students; nearly half (49 percent) said it would save tax dollars; and 45 percent said it would enhance student achievement.
It’s true that none of those questions elicited support from a majority of respondents, but those are still pretty good showings. And if so many people think consolidating smaller districts’ administrative functions would allow us to do more for our kids and save money, isn’t it worth considering?
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A: Libraries are vaults of information, gathering places, town centers, windows to the world. We visit them to read, to research, to meet, to listen, to expand our minds and our lives.
Yet 400,000 Hoosiers have no library service at all. And many more are served by tiny libraries with tiny collections and inadequate hours.
The Kernan-Shepard Commission recommended that library districts be reorganized to establish 92 countywide systems with an option to create multi-county districts.
Some critics have said the commission wants to close libraries. That is not true. We merely want to consolidate administrations and reduce overhead, pumping more money into materials and services.
Other critics have said that some unserved Hoosiers do not want library service. We don’t accept that. Creating a library system may not be top-of-mind for Hoosiers struggling with keeping their jobs, feeding their children and paying for health care. But we ought to afford every Hoosier family the equal opportunity to access the marvelous things that a library can bring into their lives.
Still others say that these Hoosiers could get library service if they wanted it. But, depending on the library, it costs as much as $272 for a family not covered by a library district to get a library card.
The case for establishing 92 countywide systems is not merely to serve every Hoosier, as important as that is. It’s also to better serve all Hoosiers, including those who already enjoy fine library service.
Clearly there are efficiencies to be had. Indiana libraries employ twice as many staff members per 10,000 population and spend 47 percent more for operations per resident than the national average. The cost to circulate a single item varies wildly – from $95.32 at the York Township Public Library in Benton County to a little more than 70 cents at the Crawford County Public Library.
And the rate at which residents of library districts are taxed also varies, even within a county such as Elkhart County, where patrons of Nappanee Public Library pay 22 cents per $100 of assessed valuation but those of Bristol Public Library pay a bit more than 3½ cents.
Beech Grove Public Library, with the state’s 11th-highest library tax rate (20.72 cents per $100), recently deemed itself a “distressed unit” and petitioned to be exempted from the property tax cap imposed by the 2008 legislature. Wouldn’t consolidation with Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library, which surrounds Beech Grove and levies a tax rate of only 8.95 cents, make more sense?
Let’s be clear: We’re not saying we have too many libraries. We have too many library districts, too many administrators and too much overhead. By reducing the number of districts and ensuring that they cover every corner of every county, we can save money while guaranteeing that every Hoosier can access a library.
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A: Voters in November made it clear from the top of the ballot to the bottom that they wanted change.
It seems appropriate, then, that in an era when Hoosiers want to start anew that Indiana reconsider its oldest form of government, which has been criticized and questioned almost since its inception.
The notion that a trustee should oversee the poor dates to 16th-century England. The boundaries for Indiana’s 1,008 townships were laid out in the 1790, a quarter century before Indiana became a state. By 1817, the first year of Indiana’s statehood, leaders were questioning whether Indiana had too many “listers,” the precursor to township assessors.
We’ll grant that it probably made sense for numerous, small units of government to be available to people when their primary mode of transportation was horse-drawn buggy. Government needed to be literally close to the people. But today? With interstates that make transportation speedy and the Internet that makes communication instantaneous, it’s disingenuous for defenders of this anachronism to say that townships are needed because they’re close to the people.
Do you know who your township trustee is? How about the members of the township board? Probably not. Few people do.
And it’s not particularly easy to find out. Many trustees in the smaller townships keep their offices in their homes; that’s understandable. But they don’t post signs or list telephone numbers that would help constituents find them. That’s not!
Many spend more on administration than they distribute in poor relief. Some build up disproportionately large nest eggs of cash-on-hand or investments, but don’t lower the rates at which they tax property owners.
In some townships, township board members are paid more to attend four meetings a year than county council members are paid for many more meetings and responsibility. And many township trustees employ a relative as deputy trustee, clerk or investigator.
They do so because they can. Township officials don’t have much oversight. They answer only to the township board, the members of which often are elected without opposition and by the small percentage of voters who bother to go to the bottom of the ballot.
You pay for this unaccountable layer of government – although not necessarily in fair way. Township tax rates across the state vary widely – from less than a penny to 98 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
The neediest of your neighbors may pay too. Poor relief assistance is highly subjective; some trustees give an average of 10 times or more to an individual compared to the average another trustee provides.
Kernan-Shepard and Gov. Daniels want to abolish township government and move its few functions to the county. Townships’ most important services – providing poor relief and fire protection– will be delivered more fairly and consistently and funded on a countywide basis, thus ensuring that residents of no one locale bear an undue burden.
Trustees, county officials, civic leaders and human service providers will plan how poor relief is provided. Planning will be deliberative, the phase-in gradual. Satellite offices will be established so people need not travel long distances for help.
A countywide coordinating body comprised of elected county and municipal officials and public safety officials will oversee all public safety services. Better coordination will improve service, cut costs and ensure greater equity in delivery and costs.
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A: Absolutely not. We agree that emergency assistance is an incredibly important function, and we’re interested in ensuring that it is distributed and paid for in a fair manner. What’s more, we’re troubled that many townships spend more on overhead than they distribute in poor relief.
Under our plan, the distribution of poor relief and the taxation levied to pay for it would be done on a countywide basis, overseen by the county executive. It would be his or her responsibility to ensure that personalized service is maintained and that offices are accessible throughout the county.
We’re calling for counties to create a poor relief transition planning body with broad bipartisan representation, including elected township and county officials, human services providers and others to ensure a smooth transition to the countywide system.
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A: More than 1,150 local police and fire departments provide public safety services across the state. That’s expensive, complex and duplicative. What’s worse, confusion caused if a 911 call is dropped or incorrectly forwarded could slow service to someone in dire need of help.
It makes sense to coordinate police, fire and emergency services so that citizens across a county have good and equal service and fairly bear the cost. Now, larger cities operate specialized services such as dive and hazmat teams, paid for by their citizens. If a car goes into a lake or a chemical spill occurs outside the city limits, the city’s team, of course, should and will respond, but the city and its taxpayers won’t be reimbursed for that expense.
Coordination will reduce the cost of services by achieving economies of scale, and then spread the cost to everyone who benefits from the services. Coordination also will lessen duplication of services and equipment and will ease turf battles.
That’s why we’re calling for the creation of a coordinating body to establish local standards of service, work out service arrangements and adjust service and revenue areas of providers to achieve efficiencies and to fairly distribute both services and tax burden.
The coordinating body should be led and administered by the county executive and its membership should include the mayors of any city in the county and a representative of each additional unit providing any of the included public safety services. With input from the county’s citizens, this body will produce local service standards and a plan for public safety services within 18 months.
A: Voters in Indiana’s cities and towns elect their leaders in odd-numbered years. The most recent municipal election was in 2007. That’s costly and unnecessary, since Indiana also has elections in even-numbered years – 2006 and 2008, for example. It also discourages voter participation. What’s more, some school districts hold the election of their school board members during the primary. That likewise inhibits voter participation. According to Secretary of State Todd Rokita, 40 percent of registered voters voted in the 2006 general election, a non-presidential year. Only 19 percent voted in that year’s primary and, even worse, only 14 percent voted in the 2007 municipal elections. That means that a paltry share of voters are choosing our leaders. The irony is that school board members, elected by so few of us, have more of a say over what you pay in property taxes than virtually any other elected official. That would change if the Kernan-Shepard reforms are adopted. School board elections would be at general-election time. Municipal elections would take place in even-numbered years, coinciding with the existing primary and general elections and thus eliminating the $22 million cost of those elections every four years. These changes are embodied in Senate Bill 452, authored by Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville. SB 452 also authorizes counties to use vote centers, which are polling places where any county voter may vote, rather than go to a specific precinct. Vote centers, which were tested in three Indiana counties, encourage more voter participation and reduce the cost of elections. In addition, SB 452 will end the unseemly practice of public employees being elected to the government body that employs them, thus giving them the opportunity to vote to approve their own raises and other issues that present a conflict of interest. A: We recognize that a smooth, orderly and sensitive transition is needed so that services are not disrupted and citizens feel confident in their government. The transfer of township government’s duties to the county likely will take about 18 months, from the time the new laws would take effect – probably July 1, 2009 – until the current trustee terms end.
The legislation will accommodate plans for other transitions so that nothing is done hastily or haphazardly.
One of the reasons to make local government more transparent and accountable is so that citizens trust it and have confidence in it. We must ensure that those sentiments are not undermined during the transition process.
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A: Our form of government is a democratic republic. That means that the people elect representatives who listen to us and represent our wishes at the governmental forum – the Capitol or the Statehouse or city hall. Sometimes that’s easy; sometimes it takes courage. We’re asking our state senators and representatives to do what they were elected to do and cast a vote in favor of reform – even if they face some opposition. It’s the right thing to do.
Occasionally, our representatives decide that the people should have a direct vote, and they arrange for a referendum. We think that would be a mistake in this case. A series of referenda likely would be enormously expensive and would result in a hodgepodge of approaches to government – maybe 92 variations! That would contradict one of our principal goals – to make government more understandable to the people it serves.
One of the most promising outcomes of the Kernan-Shepard recommendations is that government will be more accountable, responsive and accessible to the people it serves. The recommendations make accommodations for local needs and circumstances, and by electing their own officials, deciding the appropriate size of the county council for their locale and choosing how to consolidate school and library administrations, the voters of each county will put their customized stamp on the process. But it’s terribly important that the state legislature provide a uniform blueprint so that every county’s structure looks alike. We think that’s the best way to ensure that Hoosiers understand their own government and have confidence in it.
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A: The first very good indication that people were ready for change came Nov. 4, when they voted for change from the top of the ballot to the bottom. That included the vote in 30 of the 43 townships where referenda were held on the township assessor question. Voters there – aware of the antiquated and inequitable system and cognizant of the smooth transition that had been made in townships where the shift already occurred – said they, too, wanted their county assessors to oversee all property assessments.
Another indication came Jan. 5, when Ball State University’s Bowen Center for Public Affairs, released its Hoosier Poll. The poll showed that 67 percent of respondents want local government to be run more efficiently. It was Hoosiers’ second highest priority – behind only jobs and ahead of improving health care and schools – for the legislative session. That’s phenomenal.
And we have to believe that, at a time when families and businesses are tightening their belts, most people think that their governments should do the same. It is common sense to reduce overhead – cut the fat, in other words – before considering reduction in services.
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A: Waiting would be a mistake. We’ve already waited far too long to bring common sense to local government in Indiana. Hard as it is to believe, people began to question whether Indiana had too many “listers” – the precursors to township assessors – 192 years ago! Indiana had been a state for only a year when its form of local government came under question.
Seventy-three years ago, a blue-ribbon commission appointed by Gov. Paul McNutt stated that “the county rather than the township should be made the unit for assessment purposes.” Similar questions about townships and other parts of our local government have been raised in study after study after study, year after year after year.
If ever there was a time for streamlining local government, for rooting out inefficiency and redundancy and for eliminating extra layers, it is now, when we are faced with an economic crisis, when this issue has bipartisan backing of elected leaders as well as an array of business, labor and economic development interests and when the populace is ready for change.
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Studies and Analysis
The Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform report, a variety of related studies and relevant web sites are provided for your information and analysis.
Featured reports:
• Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform• Ball State University Center for Business and Economic Research, January 2009
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