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Kernan-Shepard reforms will:
• Save money
• Make government more efficient, transparent, effective and accountable to the people who fund it • Fulfill the will of the people. Savings Better government The will of the people Legislation Arguments against K-S, and why they’re bunk Common-sense recommendations from the K-S report Studies
Several studies have been done that quantify the savings Indiana could expect by enacting the Kernan-Shepard reforms. Ball State University Center for Business and Economic Research, January 2009 Local Government Reform by Dagney Faulk, Ph.D., and Michael Hicks, Ph.D. Potential savings: $400 million to $622 million a year Some specifics: • About $200 million a year would be saved through economies of scale – spreading the cost of government over more individuals through consolidation of taxing districts (other than school districts) that is recommended in the Kernan-Shepard report.
o Most savings – 80 percent – realized through economics of scale would be concentrated in smaller counties.
• About $422 million a year would be saved through consolidations that would reduce inefficiencies.
o Most of these savings – 88 percent – would be achieved in larger, more populous counties.
o This estimate is based on an assumption that average efficiency would be achieved. Savings “could be dramatically larger” if local governments became more efficient than average. COMPETE study, Indiana Project for Efficient Local Government, 1999 and 2004
Sponsored by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. COMPETE stands for Coalition on Monitoring Public Efficiency and Tax Expenditures, a group of elected officials, business leaders, association representatives and academicians who initiated this study because they were concerned that local government could not meet the growing demand for services by increasing the tax burden. Potential savings: $80 million year
Surely $80 million in annual savings is not insignificant. Yet this estimate is five years old and was based on assumptions, not the more specific suggestions that subsequently emerged from the Kernan-Shepard Commission. University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, October 2008
Piling On: Multilevel Government and the Fiscal Common-Pool by Christopher Berry, Ph.D. Published in the American Journal of Political Science Potential savings: 10 percent of local government budgets Berry argues that overlapping governments result in “overfishing” from the shared tax base. Such overlaps devour 10 percent of local tax revenue.
_______________________________________________________ Anecdotal evidence Cass County: County and Logansport officials estimated a savings of $400,000 a year when they merged their public safety dispatch centers. Hancock County: The county assessor said that consolidation of assessing duties, as recommended by Kernan-Shepard, saved her county $95,000 in 2008 and will save $150,000 in 2009.
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.
Lake County: Taxpayers will see more than $683,000 in savings in 2009 from the consolidation and downsizing of six township assessor offices, the Times of Northwest Indiana reported in December.
Marion County: The Indianapolis controller estimated savings of at least $3 million when township assessing duties were shifted to the county. Marion County saved $400,000 in 2008 merely by reducing the outgoing township assessors’ pay and will realize more when their $27,500 salaries and benefits are eliminated from the books later this year.
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The imperative of savings Clearly, the savings enumerated above are significant, especially at a time when budgets for local government are stretched more tightly than ever. That’s partly a result of the global economic downturn, but it’s also a result of steps taken by the 2008 General Assembly to hold down property taxes.
As a homeowner, you probably were pleased when you saw that your more recent property tax bill was lower than the previous one. And this year, the bills will be even lower. But 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.
Indiana has more than 10,000 local officials. The typical Hoosier is subject to the decisions of 26 separately elected local officials, yet few of us could name any of them.
We have antiquated township government, with more townships than all but eight states and trustees with dwindling duties.
We elect 13 separate county officials, none of whom answers to another, so the buck never stops. We live in the only state in the nation that divides fiscal and other legislative policy-making between two county entities – the board of commissioners and the county council.
Surely we’d be more interested in our government if it fit our needs (and our century!); if it were accountable; if it were efficient and effective; and if it were understandable. Surely we’d be better served if the buck stopped somewhere in county government and if we could follow its actions without a scorecard.
Surely we’d be more interested in government if more highly qualified candidates ran for local offices, giving us a meaningful choice. It’s hard to get enthused about voting when, as in 2006, there is no opposition in 46 percent of county commissioner and county councillor races, 50 percent of county administrative officer races, 64 percent of township board races and 76 percent of township trustee races!
And yet, who can blame civic-minded people if they aren’t interested in running under the current governmental structure? They know that county government is untenable and that township government is antiquated. Surely we’d be more likely to participate in the election of the officials who have the most impact on our property tax rates – school board members – if their elections were moved to the general election. It would increase voter participation, too, if municipal elections were moved to even-numbered years. And surely we’d have more faith in our government if county officials didn’t play musical chairs – running out their term limits before moving on to the next administrative office – and if our townships weren’t rife with nepotism. Enacting the Kernan-Shepard reforms would go a long way toward alleviating those situations.
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 “yes” vote in 30 of the 43 townships where referenda were held on whether assessing duties should be shifted from the township to the county. (The other 965 townships had already made the shift.) 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. “One size doesn’t fit all.”
The Kernan-Shepard reforms do not suggest that it should. In fact, our current form of government is, indeed, one size, and it is ill-fitting and woefully outdated for the 21st century. The Kernan-Shepard legislation calls for reducing redundant layers of government and superfluous elected officials in favor of a streamlined and accountable structure. It makes accommodations for local needs and circumstances, as well as extensive county-specific planning. Counties will decide how many members should sit on their county councils (seven, nine or 11, with three members elected at large) and plan for emergency poor relief, public safety coordination and library consolidation.
“Let the people decide through referenda.”
That would be a mistake. For one, it would be extremely costly to hold referenda across the state. Two, the results could be a hodgepodge of governmental structures that make local government more confusing and less accessible than it is now. One of the most important reasons to enact the Kernan-Shepard reforms is to restore voters’ confidence in their government. A crazy quilt of county government structures flies in the face of that goal. What’s more, voters elect lawmakers to make tough decisions, not abdicate responsibility in the name of “voter choice.” Voters made their choice when they elected 100 House members and 50 senators. Those individuals need to step up and do the job for which they were elected. “Let the local elected officials in each county decide.”
While we have been heartened that some forward-thinking incumbents or recently retired leaders support the Kernan-Shepard reforms – even when the reforms mean those individuals will lose their jobs – not all county leaders are so capable of setting aside their own self-interest in favor of the public good. That is somewhat understandable; it is always difficult to contemplate losing one’s job, and that is especially true in these tough times. But if they cannot look past their own situations to fairly evaluate the public good that comes from these sensible reforms, we should expect our lawmakers to do so – and we should tell them that. “I was a trustee” or “those local officials are my friends.”
We understand that lawmakers develop relationships during their years of service as elected officials and as leaders in their respective political parties. We understand that many of them got their start in local government and depend on local political leaders for their re-election. But legislators are elected to act in the best interest of all their constituents, not just a handful of friends or political allies. They are elected to responsibly make the right decisions for Indiana, not special interests. “Now is not the time.”
Some legislative leaders have said that lawmakers are too preoccupied with the state budget to deal with local government reform. This argument implies that lawmakers are not capable of dealing with more than one issue at a time and that every one of the 150 member s of the General Assembly will be working every minute of the session on the budget. Neither is true. Lawmakers juggle dozens, even hundreds of issues. They have filed more than 1,000 bills, so they’re apparently willing to do so. And most of the budget work is done by a core group of lawmakers. Many others surely have time to commit to this timely idea. 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, including the governor, as well as an array of business, labor and economic development interests; and when the populace is ready for change, as evidenced by election results from the top to the bottom of last November’s ballot. The Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform, a bipartisan group commonly known as the Kernan-Shepard Commission, studied local government in Indiana and in December 2007 issued a report with 27 specific recommendations to cut bureaucracy and streamline government. Here they are:
Counties:
Create a clearer, more accountable structure with fewer elected officials. Better coordinate public safety services.
1. Establish a single-person elected county chief executive. 2. Establish a single, unified legislative body for county government. Expand legislative membership to ensure sufficient representation for included rural, suburban and urban populations. 3. Transfer the responsibility for administering the duties of the county auditor, treasurer, recorder, assessor, surveyor, sheriff and coroner to the county executive. Transfer the varied duties of the clerk to the courts, to the county election board and to the county executive. Establish objective minimum professional qualifications and standards for certain county administrative functions. 4. Retain a local government role for property tax assessment under a county assessor who is required to meet professional qualifications and appointed by the county executive. 5. Create a countywide body to oversee the provision of all public safety services. 6. Consolidate emergency public safety dispatch by county or multi-county region. Require that new, local emergency communications systems be compatible with the Project Hoosier SAFE-T statewide 800 MHz communications system. 7. Transfer the responsibility for all funding of the state’s trial court system to the state, including public defenders and probation. 8. Move the funding of child welfare from counties to the state. Townships:
Transfer all present responsibilities to the county executive. 9. Transfer the responsibility for administering the duties of township government for assessment, poor relief, fire protection, emergency medical services (EMS), cemeteries and any other remaining responsibilities to the county executive. Establish a countywide poor relief levy. 10. Transfer the responsibilities of the township small claims courts in Marion County to superior courts. Schools:
Establish districts that are large enough to provide high-caliber education at a lower cost and enhance fiscal accountability. 11. Reorganize school districts to achieve a minimum student population of 2,000. Establish state standards and a county-based planning process similar to that established in 1959 legislation. 12. Require that school corporation bonds be approved by the fiscal body of the municipal or county government containing the greatest proportion of assessed value in the school district. 13. Prompt joint purchasing by schools. 14. Conduct all non-partisan school elections during November in even years. Cities and Towns:
Strengthen accountability of elected officials, and eliminate the costs of separate elections. 15. Allow the city council to appoint the city clerk in second-class cities. 16. Move all municipal elections to an even-year cycle. 17. Transfer the responsibilities of municipal health departments to the county health department. Libraries and Special Districts:
Establish library districts that are large enough to provide high-caliber services to every Hoosier at a lower cost, and improve fiscal accountability. 18. Reorganize library systems by county and provide permanent library service for all citizens. 19. Require that the budgets and bonds of library and all other special districts be approved by the fiscal body of the municipal or county government containing the greatest proportion of assessed value in the unit seeking approval. 20. Strengthen the current joint purchasing infrastructure for libraries. All local governments:
Encourage additional voluntary action to increase efficiency and effectiveness. 21. Expand voluntary coordination and consolidation of units and services. Strengthen the power of voters to compel consolidation. 22. Allow local governments to establish service districts with differentiated levels of service and corresponding tax rates. 23. Facilitate local improvement efforts using best management and business practices. Strengthen state mechanisms that support these activities, particularly for collective purchasing. 24. Prohibit employees of a local government unit from serving as elected officials within the same local government unit. Support and Monitoring:
Facilitate the implementation of these recommendations. 25. Assign the Indiana Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to monitor progress toward these recommendations and conduct additional research as needed. Produce an annual report on progress through 2011. 26. Establish a statewide benchmarking system to provide the public and policy-makers with current information about local government productivity and progress. 27. Designate a state office to provide technical assistance to local government. Read the complete plan. Join our Grassroots Action Center to receive regular updates about the progress of our reform efforts in the 2009 General Assembly. |