As of the first week in February 2010, there are mixed signals coming out of Indianapolis regarding proposed bills aimed at eliminating township boards and township trustees.

In the House, HB 1249 proposed that “all township governments are abolished on January 1, 2013, and all township functions are transferred to the county.” This bill did not make it out of committee.

In the Senate, SB 0240 specified “that in each county after December 31, 2012: (1) the county fiscal body is the fiscal body and legislative body of each township in the county.”

This bill was passed in the Senate by a 29-19 vote, and will now be taken up by a House committee.

In an effort at compromise, those supporting townships in the House introduced HB 1181. It calls for a public question to be placed on each general election ballot in November 2010, giving the voters an opportunity to vote in favor of retaining a township trustee and a township board. If the referendum is not approved, the township duties would be transferred to the county on January 1, 2012. This bill was passed in the House by a vote of 54-44, and will now be taken up by a Senate committee.

Since the two bills that passed, one in each chamber, are contradictory, it is not at all clear what, if anything, will emerge this year in the form of new legislation. However, even if no final action is taken by the full legislature, neither side in this struggle feels that this matter is permanently settled. Similar bills were brought up and defeated last year, and will likely be proposed again in a future legislative session, partly because the underlying issues and problems remain.

The push to eliminate township government started several years ago when Governor Mitch Daniels appointed the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform (ICLGR), chaired by a former governor, Joseph Kernan, and the chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, Randall Shepard. The ICLGR issued its report on December 11, 2007, which was titled Streamlining Local Government: We’ve got to stop governing like this.
In a cover letter to the report, Kernan and Shepard stated: “The services presently performed by township personnel should be transferred to the county governments.” Their arguments were financial and practical. They stated that Indiana’s multi-layered system “is more expensive than it needs to be,” and that “overlapping layers” of inefficiency called for “a leaner, more effective government.”

The report included 27 recommendations affecting counties, cities, townships, libraries, schools, and more. If enacted, the recommendations would reduce the number of local government units from 3,086 to 1,931 and the number of elected officials from 11,012 to as few as 5,171.

Recommendation #9 in the ICLGR report reads as follows: “Transfer the responsibility for administering the duties of township government for assessment, poor relief, fire protection, emergency management services (EMS), cemeteries and any other remaining responsibilities to the county executive. Establish a countywide poor relief levy.”

In its comments on this recommendation, the report stated that the 1,008 township governments in Indiana “result in a structure that is simply too complex,” and that Indiana’s current “three complete levels of general-purpose government” means that it has “one more layer than in most of the rest of the country.” It goes on to state that “No other state has a universal layer of township government.”

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce is one of the leading groups that are pushing for the adoption of the recommendations of the ICLGR. The organization argues that a more stable and predictable business climate will exist in a state with lower taxes, less expensive government, and a less complicated system within which to operate.

Those opposing the elimination of township governments are concerned about losing local control of matters that are best handled by people closest to the problems being addressed. They argue that any cost savings will be offset by the disadvantages of dealing with county and state officials who do not have first-hand knowledge of local situations, which may be quite different from one township to another.

The Bristol Town Council has unanimously voted its support of retaining the township system, noting that rural areas face far different problems than those encountered in urban settings. Rep. Wes Culver, whose district includes the Bristol area, voted in favor of HB 1181, which would allow residents of Washington Township, for example, to vote to keep their township board and township trustee, if they so desired.