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| Sunday, November 06, 2005 | (No comments posted.)
The Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute's report blasting the property tax reassessment has some excellent advice: Move the assessing function to the county level.
Let's take that advice a step further and add what other studies have recommended: Get rid of the township form of government.
The institute's study noted the problems with getting such a decentralized bureaucracy as the state's assessing officials to work cohesively.
Although the institute isn't criticizing the work done in Lake and Porter counties, it notes that there is no teamwork among the 1,100 county and township assessors who do the actual assessing across the state.
Lake County's reassessment was done by Cole Layer Trumble, an Ohio-based consulting firm, while all other work was done by local assessors.
In Indiana, voters elect the township assessors who do the actual work. That alone should be a clue that something is wrong with the system. Why should voters fill a position that doesn't -- or at least shouldn't -- set public policy?
Having township officials do the work "essentially is an artifact of the early 19th century," the study says.
"Although reasonable when Indiana was being settled, this assignment is no longer optimal. Townships no longer are the primary provider of government services," it adds.
Nor do townships make sense in an age when travel times are a tiny fraction of what they were when Indiana last drafted a constitution. It takes mere minutes to travel to the county seat to conduct business, rather than the hours it took in 1851, when Indiana's Constitution was adopted.
The assessing work, as the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute correctly notes, belongs at the county level so the burden of state oversight can be eased.
Other township functions can be redistributed easily as well. Parks and other recreation responsibilities can be shifted to the county level. Poor relief could be handled at the state level, with people needing assistance having one less layer of government to go to in order to seek immediate or long-term help.
And counties could handle cemetery maintenance, either through the park department or highway department, either of which has the crews and equipment necessary to perform the routine upkeep.
So why have townships at all?
When state Rep. Robert Kuzman proposed abolishing townships in 2004, he of course drew the criticism of Indiana's 1,008 townships. That was to be expected.
Objective studies have shown townships are an inefficient form of government. Some townships actually spend more to administer poor relief than they give out in benefits. An Indiana Chamber of Commerce study last year said most townships budget overhead costs of 90 cents for each dollar of assistance given.
Indiana needs to have serious dialogue about government restructuring -- including abolishing townships as a quaint but no longer essential entity.
This is the 21st century, not the 19th.
Your opinion, please
Should Indiana abolish the township form of government?
Share your thoughts at http://www.nwitimes.com/youropinion>
Your opinion, please
Should Indiana abolish the township form of government?
Share your thoughts at www.nwitimes.com/youropinion.
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