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How they see it in Indianapolis ...
"Recommendation #3: Transfer the responsibility for administering the duties of the county auditor, treasurer, recorder, assessor, surveyor, sheriff and coroner to the county executive. Transfer the varied duties of the clerk to the courts, the county election board and the county executive. Establish objective minimum professional qualifications and standards for certain county administrative functions."
"Indiana counties elect a significant number of autonomous or independent county officers: auditor, treasurer, recorder, assessor, surveyor, sheriff, coroner and clerk. Just as common sense would keep one from hiring three separate executives to run a business, it also recommends against hiring 11 or more.
The county offices described above carry out what we describe as administrative functions. Purely administrative positions should be appointed. We recommend that, except for the clerk’s duties, all these responsibilities be assigned to administrative offices under the county executive. The clerk’s court duties should be transferred to the courts; the licensing and similar duties should be transferred to the county executive; and the election duties should be assigned to the election board of which the county executive would be a member. The prosecuting attorney, as a state officer, should remain an elected position.
More specifically, we recommend that the responsibilities of the auditor, as a fiscal agent of the state of Indiana, be assigned to a new county fiscal officer who reports to the county executive. The responsibilities of the coroner should be assigned to a professional medical examiner and provided through multi-county arrangements when possible.
Unless otherwise indicated, we recommend that the county executive be given significant flexibility to structure the administrative departments of county government in a way that best suits local needs. Correspondingly, we recommend removing any strict statutory residency requirements for administrative positions, while allowing counties the option to establish them. Further, because the successful execution of some of these administrative responsibilities often involves complex technical skills, we recommend the establishment of minimum objective professional qualifications and performance standards for these positions.
Reassigning these functions to the executive officer will create clearer lines of accountability for local citizens and unified policy-setting regarding general operation, staffing, purchasing and other internal management issues. While including the sheriff may be the least anticipated element of our recommendation, we note that no other law enforcement leader is elected within any local, state or federal governments. We do not elect the chief of police or the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It is important that county law enforcement be led by and accountable to the county executive for the same reasons that the remaining administrative county offices should be: It ensures that local government leadership and responsibility are clear, and gives citizens direct access to that leadership.
While we do not see the need for a constitutional convention to reform local governments, implementing this change for all offices except the assessor will require a constitutional amendment. We recommend that the responsibilities of the county assessor be transferred to the present county executive immediately and that, as with the preceding recommendations, the complete transition to the new administrative structure take effect no later than January 2011.
Accordingly, we recommend that the necessary process to amend the constitution begin immediately with the 2008 session of the General Assembly. This will allow the required adoption by two consecutively elected General Assemblies and the state referendum prior to the proposed transition. We recognize that, while the elimination of these elected offices requires an amendment to the state constitution, many of the duties now assigned to these offices can be reassigned to the county executive by legislative action."
The rest of the story ...
Again, the authors of the report seek to remove the right of citizens to choose who will conduct their public business. They propose that the county executive appoint the county auditor, treasurer, recorder, assessor, surveyor, sheriff and coroner. They appear to suggest the court appoint the clerk.
To reach this result, they describe the functions of the offices as "administrative," and suggest that any administrative functions should be assigned to individuals appointed by the one-person county executive. Let's think about that for a moment.
Keep thinking .... (That's what they don't want you to do. If they can push this stuff through fast enough, by the time you find out what they took away, it will be too late for you to get it back.)
Yes, you're right. Those "administrative" offices are already appointed. They are appointed by you, the voter. They are not insulated from you by a county executive. They answer directly to you. Are you really ready to give up your right to chose?
The authors of the report reveal their true colors in the reasons they give for taking away your right to vote for these offices. They note that "the successful execution of some of these administrative responsibilities often involves complex technical skills." And they suggest removing residency requirements for people filling these roles should be removed. Stated simply: They don't think the people living in local areas are smart enough to run their own affairs. They apparently don't think they're even smart enough to learn.
And you have to love the idea of the one-person county executive appointing the sheriff and the coroner. Apparently, there is no value in having a sheriff who does not risk his job by investigating wrongdoing by the county executive. And there is no value in having a coroner who can arrest a sheriff who misbehaves.
There must also be no value, for instance, in having an auditor, assessor and treasurer to keep an eye on each other. There is no value to having a clerk and court keep an eye on each other.
Under the plan, if one office is not doing a good job, but the rest are doing fine, your only option is to replace the appointing authority. You will not be able to replace only the officeholder who needs to go. Then, the new county executive can appoint an entirely different set of officeholders. He or she would not be bound to replace only the one problem individual. This does not seem to be a model of efficiency.
The upshot of the whole plan is that the authors of the report believe there is no value in having you, the citizen, keep an eye on your government. There is no value in your judgment of who you want to serve in your public offices. There is no value in your vote - clearly an outdated relic from our horse-and-buggy past.