ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. (WOWO): In just a few days voters will take to the polls for the November 4, 2014 General Election. A big issue on the ballot is a proposal to reorganize local government by replacing our current three County Commissioners with a Single County Executive. What does that mean for you? WOWO News spoke with Andy Downs, Director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at IPFW, to explain both sides of the proposed legislation.
Q: Can you give an overview of the Single County Executive proposal?
“Currently in Allen County, as is the case in basically all the counties in Indiana, there is a three person Board of Commissioners that are both the legislative branch of government and the executive branch of government so they make the laws and they're also in charge of executing the laws. In addition to the Board of Commissioners there is a County Council. Currently that body has seven members on it; four of them come from districts, three of them come from at large. The issue that's on the ballot would actually get rid of the Board of Commissioners and replace it with one person, a Single County Executive and the Council would actually go from seven members to actually 9 members and those 9 members would actually come from districts as opposed to districts and at large.”
Q: There is an argument over which form of government provides more representation. What would you say to residents who fear they will lose or gain representation?
“Actually both are correct. When you think about it right now, in terms of County Council, there is your District Representative. You can go talk with that person. But then there are also the three at large members you can go talk to as well. Theoretically they do represent you. If we go to 9 districts, then there is only going to be one person who is beholding to you as a voter. Now that makes it sound like the first version, (what we have right now) provides you with more representation, really what it does though is provide you more avenues into government.”
“The argument on the other side, in other words going to just districts, the arrangement there typically is that we'll be talking about smaller areas. Allen County has about 360 thousand people in it, if you divide that by four, that’s a whole lot of people that are being represented by someone in a district. But if you divide that by 9 suddenly you're only talking about 40 thousand people being represented by each individual District Representative and that means that person can begin to focus a little more on the needs and wants of that district specifically.”
Q: What do you say to people who claim, if it's not broke, why fix it?
One of the augmenters, and actually if we look nationally, we find that the Board of Commissioners structure, the one we have right now, is the one that you'll find most often nationally. However, there is a trend away from that to either still having a Board of Commissioners, but hiring a County Executive, somebody who serves at the pleasure of the Commissioners, or to the Single County Executive concept. So there is a trend moving in this direction. And the argument people make is that government will become more efficient, it will make decisions faster. And really this comes down to a philosophical question: Do you want a government that is perhaps a bit more responsive, a bit more efficient or do you want a government that has the ability to slow things down and not move in the fastest manner?”
“Now that's a philosophical question so I want to point out that no matter which one of those sides your on, even if we went to a Single County Executive, there still would be County Council to deal with, the same way the Mayor has to deal with City Council and things are not going to move at some huge break-neck pace in any way shape or from. Things are still going to move kind of slowly, that's the way the system has been set to work.”
Q: Why implement the Single County Executive now?
“This is legislation that kind of popped in rather late and was kind of a surprise to people and some people say that it didn’t quite get it's full hearing the way it should. Nonetheless it was introduced and followed the process and managed to become law and Allen County is the only place where this is being tired. But the idea of government restructuring has actually been around in Allen County and Fort Wayne for better than four years. For four years, we've been talking about restructuring government. This particular bit of restructuring hasn't often been the subject of the conversation, that's not to say that it hasn’t been at some point. Usually the restructuring that people are talking about has been for example, to combine city and county governments or to eliminate particular offices, those sorts of things. So this is a little bit on the newer side, but at the same time, it's still very much part of a broader discussion about government structure.”
Q: What will be the cost of the Single County Executive if it is implemented?
“We don't know the answer to that question yet, but I think it's probably pretty safe to say that there won't be any cost savings. But it's not the top issue for voters. What voters want is a government that is responsive to them and if having a Single County Executive makes the government more responsive than great. People are happy with that even if it costs a little more money. If having the Board of Commissioners is more responsive to them then great. Even it that costs a little more money they'll take that. So you don't often hear people talking about great cost savings when they're talking about government restructuring.”
Q: Is one structure of government better than the other?
“The research shows, one of these structures versus another is not necessarily better. What really matters in government are the people who elected to fill the positions.”
If the Single County Executive proposal is approved, the changes would not take place until 2019.
