Kernan plans government 'overhaul'

Gov. Joe Kernan's office presented a plan Monday to "overhaul" the state government, includes the creation of a nine-member cabinet and the elimination or reorganization of one-third of all state agencies.\n"Over the years, layers have been added to the government," Kernan Press Secretary Jonathan Swain said. "But while the intentions were good, it's not always been done in the most efficient way."\nDubbed the Peak Performance Project, the reorganization scheme was led by Lt. Gov. Kathy Davis. The Governor's cabinet, with each of the nine members responsible for a sector of the state government and subordinate to the Governor, is the centerpiece of the proposed government. In conjunction, the nine cabinet offices would account for every aspect of the state government.\nAlong with the new cabinet structure, the plan outlines a system that eliminates what the Kernan administration calls "waste" to create more centralized agencies, or "one-stop-shops," throughout state government. \nFor instance, under the new plan, the Families and Social Services Administration, the state's largest agency, would be disbanded and rounded into four new or existing agencies, each answering to a different cabinet office. \nAlso, some state services available from multiple agencies will be unified into one central office. In instances when a service is provided by the government through several different agencies, boards or commissions, that service will be consolidated under one umbrella.\n"Children's programs right now are spread out through about 12 agencies," Swain said. "We're moving all those under one agency, so each family will have one case manager."\nTownship assessors, who survey property in accordance with state guidelines to determine individual homeowners' property taxes, are included in the overhaul. In accordance with the Kernan plan, township assessors' duties would be transferred to the offices of each county assessor to "achieve a greater consistency and give homeowners, business owners and farmers a fairer system," Davis said in the press release.\nBut James Brinegar, township assessor for Bloomington, said that order is far too tall for the county office to handle.\n"The state makes all these rules without input from enough, or the right, county or township people," he said. "Do they think the people in the county assessor's office can do it? There's no way. I bet you 99 percent of them haven't assessed a piece of land in two years."\nSwain said that although the elimination of government jobs is unavoidable, it is not the intention of the administration.\n"Some state employees will be redeployed," he said. "The goal here is not to cut out a set number of state employees, but to do this reorganization."\nSwain also said he did not know an approximate number of government employees that would be laid off under the plan.\nMeanwhile, Ellen Whitt, deputy campaign manager for Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitch Daniels, said the Peak Performance Project is an attempt to mimic proposals set forth by Daniels. \n"Many of the measures he's proposing today, Mitch has proposed in the last six months or so on the road," Whitt said.\nWhitt said several similarities exist between Daniels' proposals and the Kernan plan, but Swain said the Peak Performance Project is in no way a response to Daniels' actions.\n"The governor announced this in is his first State of State address in January when he asked the lieutenant governor to lead this effort," he said. "These aren't in response to anything in the Daniels campaign. This was about taking the pieces of government apart and looking at how it makes sense to put it back together."\nThe Peak Performance Project would have to pass through both houses of the state congress in order to be approved in its entirety.\n-- Contact senior writer Rick Newkirk at renewkir@indiana.edu.