All or nothing

Gov. Mitch Daniels’ recent attempts to revamp Indiana’s local government structure are being met with significant hesitation in the state Senate.

Daniels urged legislators to pass the plan that would restructure government in all of Indiana’s 92 counties. Specifically, he proposes nixing the long-standing system of having three county commissions in favor of a single county executive who would report to the county council in addition to eliminating certain county-elected offices and tossing township governments.

Although this long-considered proposal was originally drafted by the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform and co-chaired by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Supreme Court Justice Randall Shepard in a 2006 report, Daniels is facing more opposition than he expected. And it’s opposition from his own party.

Senate President pro tempore David C. Long of Fort Wayne has come out with a slight alteration to the plan. Long is calling for each county to have the right to vote for whether they want the policies enacted, because he believes they deserve to choose how their government is structured.

In most circumstances, the Editorial Board would be in favor of letting the people decide, but Long’s plan is unnecessary and will eventually lead to more confusion.

Common sense says that if Daniels is looking to streamline the government, allowing counties to choose their own policies won’t lead to that outcome. Even if almost all counties seem to be in support of the changes, one county choosing not to opt-in to the changes could possibly derail the entire process. Moreover, the leaner county governments will surely lead to job loss, and we can imagine that will lead to many counties deciding not to modify their own structures.

What this announcement by Long really does is show the division of opinions on this issue across the party line. Though Daniels believes that all around the state there are inflations in staff, people are resistant to change. Again, in times of economic uncertainty, people are going to be resistant to income loss, even if it is the small salary from a low-level county governmental position.

In the end, this proposal needs to go firmly one way or the other. Either Daniels’ plea for universal efficiency is accepted, or it’s not. Attempts to find a middle ground will be long and drawn-out, and will eventually lead to uncertainty the state doesn’t need.