Let’s consider township bill

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January 7, 2010

Anonymous The Kokomo Tribune Thu Jan 07, 2010, 10:04 PM EST

THE ISSUE: Township government.

OUR VIEW: Transfer township functions to counties.

Indiana lawmakers will have another chance this year to consider abolishing the township level of government.

We hope they’ll take advantage of the opportunity, but we’re not holding our breath.

A bill by Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, would transfer all township functions to county government. County commissioners would assume the powers and duties of the township trustee, and county councils would take over the responsibilities of township advisory boards.

If the measure were approved, the transfer would begin Jan. 1, 2013.

The change is long overdue.

The elimination of township government was among the recommendations put forward by the Kernan-Shepard Commission, a bipartisan panel put together to study the issue of reshaping local government.

A series of articles last year in The Indianapolis Star painted a picture of a level of government that has outlived its usefulness. The stories told of trustees with offices on the kitchen table and with family members filling every spot on the payroll.

They spoke of townships with bank accounts far exceeding their annual budgets but still collecting the maximum amount of property taxes.

Of course, there are two sides to the story.

Trustees in some of the state’s smaller townships acknowledge that they hire husbands or wives to answer the phone or keep the books, but they note that by operating out of their homes, they actually save the taxpayers the cost of an office. And who really needs an office when the phone might not ring for days at a time?

The vast majority of Indiana’s township trustees are civic-minded individuals who care about their communities. Many are clearly frugal in their spending. They’re not out to scam the taxpayers.

Still, you have to wonder whether Indiana really needs a level of government where the phone might not ring for more than a week. Can taxpayers afford a level of government that can rack up surpluses more than five times the size of the annual budget?

It might be asking too much to expect lawmakers to eliminate an entire level of government during this year’s budget session, but at a time of shrinking tax revenues, we think the idea is worth considering.

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