The Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform has released its awaited report — “Streamlining Local Government. We’ve Got To Stop Governing Like This” — with recommendations on what Indiana should do to make government more efficient and cost effective.

From the report:

Indiana has too many local governments. As Governor Daniels pointed out in his charge to the Commission, ―Indiana has some 2,700 local units of government authorized to levy property taxes.

Governing these units are more than 10,700 elected officials, 1,100 of whom assess property.

Few other states have as much local government.

Because local government dollars are diluted and dispersed into so many layers controlled by so many players, they are not always spent efficiently.

We should no longer try to deliver government services under boundaries set according to travel by horseback. That’s no longer efficient in this age of the Internet, interaction and interstates.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Indiana Tackles Government Reform”

  1. Steve Dalton on December 12th, 2007 9:35 pm

    Chris, I’m pretty happy to see the Governor raise this challenge. Oh, he may not get to cut government down this far, but even half of this challenge would be a great start.

  2. Chris on December 12th, 2007 10:07 pm

    Hi Steve,

    I completely agree.

    It’s time for Indiana to move away from a system that was designed for the 1800s and into a system designed for modern times.

    I hope for the best — that local government can become more effective, while costing less.

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