If Indiana government is ever streamlined, the 11,000 people who hold elected office in the state won’t lead the charge. Instead, private-sector boosters who are emerging will have to sell the ideas to both state legislators and the general public.

As the Associated Press reported this week, a new coalition that includes the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the Indiana Association of Realtors and the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership is taking up the cause. That group, MySmartGov.org, expects to spend $300,000 to $500,000 on its effort to get more government-streamlining measures passed in the next legislative session.

Last year, a commission headed by former Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard came up with ways to update a system of local government designed more than 150 years ago. That panel recommended 27 changes, including:

♦Eliminating township governments.

♦Having one elected county chief executive who would appoint county officials now elected, such as the sheriff, assessor and auditor.

♦Reorganizing small school districts so they have at least 2,000 students.

The proposals would cut the number of elected officials in Indiana from more than 11,000 to about 5,100.

The General Assembly enacted a few of the recommendations last session, including one to have the state assume local costs for providing child welfare services. Lawmakers also transferred the appraisal duties of more than 900 township assessors or township trustee assessors to the county level.


MySmartGov.org has a bipartisan flavor. Although Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels is the driving force behind government restructuring, the new group’s executive director is Marilyn Schultz, who has been a Democratic state legislator from Bloomington and state budget director under the late Democratic Gov. Frank O’Bannon. Its blog is run by Democratic blogger Jennifer Wagner and Republican blogger Josh Gillespie.

None of this – not Daniels’ advocacy, not the lobbying and public-relations budget of MySmartGov.org – will be enough to enact a full slate of dramatic changes in local government. But the new coalition can at least ensure that the arguments for smaller, restructured government are heard.