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Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Ind. Gov't. - More on: What is the role of the new House Committee on Government Reduction?
Updating this ILB entry from Jan. 18, 2011, Jon Seidel of the Gary Post Tribune reports today on the first meeting of the new committee:
A government reduction committee led by Rep. Chet Dobis of Merrillville met for the first time Tuesday and heard ideas for minor changes to state law that could add up to larger time and dollar savings for Indiana's towns, cities and counties.Dobis, a Democrat, leads the body despite being a member of the minority in the Indiana House of Representatives. Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, asked Dobis to head the committee in a gesture of bipartisanship shortly after November's election. Ever since, Dobis said, he's been inundated with ideas.
"People are coming to me with suggestions on a regular basis," Dobis said.
The committee heard from Highland Clerk-Treasurer Michael Griffin, representing the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, as well as speakers from the Association of Indiana Counties and the State Board of Accounts.
Griffin offered members a list of 87 ideas for changing local government. They included putting cities and towns on a two-year budget cycle, combining certain funds cities are required to maintain and allowing government units to give away assessed value to another interlocal government.
"We think this could help us to do some rational purchasing," Griffin said.
David Bottorff, executive director of the Association of Indiana Counties, suggested counties be allowed to do some property assessments using a recent geographic information system, or GIS, map. He also said it's becoming burdensome for counties to retain paper copies of records for 10 years.
Examiner Bruce Hartman of the State Board of Accounts, also said his office has trouble with documents. He said every county clerk and treasurer is required to file a monthly report in his office, and every government must send a list of every employee and their salaries.
Dobis said his committee will meet again next week and hear ideas from the governor's staff and the Department of Local Government Finance, and the information about employees' salaries is available at the local level. "They're not used by us for any purpose," Hartman said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 26, 2011 09:40 AM
Posted to Indiana Government