Category Archives: Local Government

The one thing that Republicans, Democrats and Independents all seem to agree on these days is that the country is in a big mess, and business as usual isn’t going to fix it.

 

As bad as things are nationally, states are arguably swimming in even more treacherous waters, because most state constitutions—including Indiana’s—require balanced budgets, a requirement that gives state lawmakers very little maneuvering room in times of economic duress. So we might expect our state legislators to forgo the usual efforts to protect their fellow partisans and  ingratiate themselves with narrow constituencies, and instead work in a bipartisan manner to solve the very difficult fiscal problems we face.

 

We might expect that, but we would be wrong.

 

So far this session we have seen efforts to designate a state pie (harmless enough, but really! Choosing an official state pie couldn’t wait?); a bill to allow students at state universities to carry guns on campus (in addition to the mayhem this would promote, if you think we have grade inflation now—how many of us faculty types would give poor marks, no matter how richly deserved, to students “packing heat?”); and yet another effort to amend the state constitution by inserting a ban on same-sex marriages (never mind that such unions are already illegal in Indiana, and that the prospect of Adam and Steve filing joint tax returns isn’t exactly topping Hoosier worry lists these days).

 

And then there’s State Senator David Long. If you think solving the problem of gun violence by arming more adolescents is counter-intuitive, to put it mildly, what is there to say about Long’s effort to have government restructuring decided by local referenda? Leaving aside the obvious cowardice of this effort to avoid casting a vote that will make some people unhappy, this is a suggestion absolutely guaranteed to make an already bad situation even worse.

 

The problem with Indiana government right now is that we have too many overlapping and duplicative units of government, and far too many elected officials. These multiple layers of government are inefficient, they make it difficult for citizens to know who is responsible for what, and they are all being paid for with tax dollars desperately needed for service delivery. (In a very real sense, we are being asked to choose between paved roads and township trustees.) The Kernan-Shepard report identified a number of problems stemming directly from the crazy quilt that is Indiana government.

 

If each county held a referendum to vote whether or not to streamline government in that county, we would be addressing the problems that have been caused by one incoherent patchwork by creating an even bigger, even more incoherent patchwork. This is like treating a cold by taking bird flu virus.

 

Is it too much to ask our state legislators to stop fiddling while Indiana burns? To put aside the game playing, pandering and politics as usual, at least for the duration of the economic crisis? We citizens would sure appreciate it. 

Remember comic Rodney Dangerfield and his “I don’t get no respect” routine? Recently, a faculty colleague told me a story that illustrates perfectly why so many of us view government with a mixture of bemusement, annoyance and even contempt—why so often, government gets even less respect than Rodney Dangerfield.

 

My colleague’s fiancée had just completed renovating a double in Lockerbie Square. He’d finally moved in, and needed garbage cans. Lockerbie is one of the central city neighborhoods in which  homeowners are required to use garbage cans provided by the City that have been engineered to be picked up by automated garbage trucks.

 

My colleague called the Mayor’s Action Line and asked for two garbage cans. She was told that she would first have to call the police and report the old cans as stolen. Once she had obtained an incident report number, she was to call back, and the cans would be ordered.  She patiently explained that no cans had been stolen; they simply hadn’t gotten any because no one lived there during restoration. She was told that truth was immaterial; if they wanted garbage cans, they had to follow procedure and report that the old ones were stolen.

 

When she called IMPD, she felt compelled to tell the person on the phone that there hadn’t really been a theft. (As she said when telling me this, “Isn’t filing a false police report a felony?”) The person on the other end of the line said it didn’t matter, this was “procedure.” She was then required to give her driver’s license/social security number in order to get the report issued.

 

Eventually, she got the incident reports, called back to the Mayor’s Action Line with the required numbers, and the garbage cans were duly delivered. Why the “theft” charade was necessary remains a mystery.

 

In the scheme of things, the saga of the garbage can is a minor irritation. But there’s a lesson here.

 

So often, Americans remain fixated on policy itself, on the question “what should government do?” In this case, for example, policymakers have determined that municipal governments should collect garbage. Public administrators then decided how to deliver the service—should employees be hired, or private companies contracted?—and how to fund it.  Those are all proper matters for public discussion and debate, because decisions about what government should do and how are most likely to be driven by ideology, and thus most likely to generate political conflict.

 

Those of us who teach public administration must focus on a different question, however, and it is equally important. Once policymakers have given administrators a job, how well do they perform?  Are they efficient? Ethical? Competent? Do they treat citizens equally and constitutionally?

 

Respect for our governing institutions has taken a real beating lately. Local governments can’t do much about the daily drumbeat of reported corruption and incompetence in Washington. But citizens might feel better if we didn’t have to visit an alternate universe just to get a garbage can.

 

 

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It’s hard not to feel sorry for Mayor Greg Ballard. Not just because he’s being hit with criticism from all sides, but because he was so clearly unprepared for the realities he faces.

The most basic question of politics—the question every mayor must confront—is “what is government’s job?” The answers fall into a spectrum between “you’re on your own” and “we’re all in this together.” It should be noted that these aren’t partisan categories; Steve Goldsmith and Bill Hudnut, both Republicans, had very different visions of government’s responsibilities. (I used to describe the differences between them by suggesting that, if a poll showed lack of public support for transportation planning, Hudnut would explain to people why such planning was essential, while Goldsmith would stop planning.)

Most of us agree in the abstract that government should do only those things that must be done collectively, and should leave other tasks to the private sector. The problem comes when we try to apply that principle to specific tasks. Let’s take garbage collection as an example. There are private scavenger companies that will pick up your garbage for a fee—why not leave that responsibility with homeowners? The short answer is that some people will be irresponsible or unable to pay for the service, and uncollected garbage is a threat to the health of all of us.

We don’t hire private security firms to provide public policing, not just because we have made a collective judgment that the use of force should be controlled by those who are accountable to the public, but also because we have learned that providing public safety is a broader, more complex task than policing alone.

We support transportation planning because failure to do so creates traffic nightmares and costs a fortune when gridlock forces us to add more concrete to our already bloated highways. (We are paying dearly today for prior mayors’ decisions to “save” money by cutting back on planning.)

We support the arts, public parks and public transportation (however inadequately) because we have learned that successful economic development depends upon the quality of life in a community—and economic development is critical if we are to maintain a tax base that allows us to collect garbage, pay police and pave streets.

It’s impossible to construct a city budget without first deciding what it is that government must do. People of good will can differ on the answer to that question, but those differences must be based upon an appreciation of how cities actually work. Money saved by refusing to pick up garbage will eventually be offset by increased costs of public health. Money saved by selling off parks will add to the costs of public safety and make it much more difficult to attract new employers.

Greg Ballard seems like a very nice man, but it is increasingly clear that he is in over his head. And while he’s learning that running a city is complicated, all of us are paying his tuition.

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