Teams to investigate into state agencies

INDIANAPOLIS -- Gov.-elect Mitch Daniels will send 32 teams of investigators into state agencies Monday with orders to report back within three weeks on the conditions they find.\nDuring a news conference Friday, Daniels also said he will outline a two-year state budget during his first State of the State address on Jan. 18, eight days after he takes office.\nThe Republican governor-elect, who will end 16 years of Democratic rule when he is inaugurated Jan. 10, took a decidedly pessimistic view of the condition of state government he expects to learn from his teams of experts.\nThey are to report back to Daniels by Dec. 10 on "conditions, problems and opportunities" after doing their due diligence on the scandal-plagued Families and Social Services Administration and Bureau of Motor Vehicles, as well as other facets of state government, such as the departments of revenue, corrections and environmental management.\n"I think the principle objective of these reports is to identify the largest problems, to help inform the people we will appoint about the nature of their new duties and the challenges they're going to face," he said during a 15-minute news conference at his transition team headquarters, which stands across the street from a homeless day shelter.\nDaniels said the administration of outgoing Gov. Joe Kernan has cooperated with his transition team, but he made clear that he anticipated worse news than has been made public on the extent of the state's fiscal problems and other conditions.\n"I am confident that we have inadequate information everywhere," Daniels said. "We know going in that there is much we don't know."\nThe first task of his state budget director-designate, Charles Schalliol, is to give the transition team a full understanding of the budget deficit of approximately $800 million, and other financial liabilities that may be looming, so it can begin crafting solutions, Daniels said.\nBalancing the budget will be more difficult, he said, after Kernan last week gave state employees pay raises, but Daniels said he did not expect to roll back salaries after taking office.\nKernan said the $13.3 million needed to cover the pay raises of at least 2 percent beginning next month and flat grants of $546 through the end of the fiscal year June 30 had been provided by the Legislature in the current budget.\nOn Tuesday, Daniels announced the appointment of Schalliol, who has been president and chief executive of BioCrossroads, a public-private life sciences initiative that promotes high-tech jobs in central Indiana.\nHe named two other top aides Friday. Transition chief and Indianapolis attorney Harry Gonso will become special counsel and chief of staff, responsible for running the governor's office. Deputy campaign manager Ellen Whitt will be Gonso's deputy and liaison to various state agencies. She formerly was a deputy secretary of state and an aide to Sen. Richard Lugar.\nThe appointees face the tremendous task of putting together a new state budget in two months. Daniels said he would outline the budget for the biennium beginning next July 1 during his State of the State address on Jan. 18 and then define it more fully the following day.\nInauguration events will begin on Saturday, Jan. 8, and conclude with the swearing-in of Daniels and Lt. Governor-elect Becky Skillman on the morning of Monday, Jan. 10. Immediately after the ceremony, Daniels and Skillman will arrive at their offices to begin work, Daniels said.\nDaniels also said Friday he had asked state Republican Chairman Jim Kittle to remain in that post.