GREENFIELD — Interested community members listened to speakers who have been involved in local government for years give the breakdown of how it functions and who does what during a Wednesday night event at the Community Foundation of Hancock County’s Thrive Center.
Pete Olson, who is currently with the Veridus Group and is a retired municipal manager, introduced the evening conversation by explaining that local government regulations can be found in Indiana State Code Title 36.
At the county level, Olson said that the county commissioners act as the executive branch, having three elected officials on the board. They are the ones who implement ideas and expend the budget. A county council acts as the legislative branch and fiscal body, creating the budget and determining where budget dollars are able to be spent while also working with ordinances, whether it be creating or changing previous ones.
“They (county council) have a tremendous amount of power in that fashion, but once it comes to actually implementing, that goes back to the county commissioners,” Olson said.
In addition to the two boards, Olson said there are a number of other elected officials, such as auditor, treasurer, assessor, recorder and more. Olson said that each has a specific role and job for the county.
With township government, Olson said that every county has nine townships that are equally divided. In a township, there is a trustee who is elected and then the advisory board, which consist of three members.
“The townships were originally structured such that they were in charge of schools. They also have some form of — I’ll call it welfare — the ability to help individuals who were struggling,” Olson said.
A function of the township that Olson said he found interesting is that, under IC 12-20-16, a trustee is authorized to provide insulin to those who cannot afford it as long as they meet some additional requirements.
Olson said that many townships are also working with fire territory and their departments these days.
He also explained the breakdown of what determines the classifications of cities and towns in IC 36-4-1.
Olson said that first class cities are any community with a population above 600,000, second class cities are from 34,000 to 599,999 and third class cities are anything less than 34,000. Greenfield is currently considered a third class city, where there is a mayor, city council and a board of works. Kathy Locke, who sits on the board, added to the conversation that the board is great for transparency since they don’t have anything to do with the budget, and they help with the day-to-day operations of the city.
Second and third class cities will have a board of works, however towns and counties do not.
To become a town, there has to be at least 2,000 voting residents.
Ryan Crum, assistant town manager and planning & development for McCordsville, has been involved in local government for a total of 18 years and with McCordsville for more than 10 years.
Towns also have a council, where executive, legislative and fiscal is all one body of three to seven elected members with a president and vice president. There is also an elected clerk treasurer.
Towns in Hancock County are Fortville, McCordsville, Ingalls, Shirley, New Palestine, Cumberland and Wilkerson.
Crum listed and spoke about the other boards in local government, such as the redevelopment commission (RDC), plan commission, board of zoning (BZA).
The RDC is a body that works with economic development and redevelopment, and also has fiscal authorities such as owning property, selling property and more.
“When used properly, it is incredibly, I think, important to the growth and development of any community,” Crum said.
Crum said that while the plan commission doesn’t have legislative powers, it is a board that has a goal of making recommendations to the council about items that are impactful to a community.
The BZA is the only board that can take legislative action that is not the council. Crum said they have the ability to approve variances, which he compared to waivers from the written rules of the council.
Other boards include parks board, library board, schools, airport authorities and solid waste district.
In order to have transparency, most meetings are recorded or streamed live in some manner so that the public can view or have access. Crum said that while they do this now for McCordsville, the state of Indiana passed legislation that will require all communities to provide a public-accessible form of their meetings.
While the conversation about who does what went into depth and detail, Olson and Crum lightly touched on how local governments get their funding, such as TIF districts, bonds which they pay back later, and taxes such as local income tax, property tax and others.
With the members of the group showing much interest in a further breakdown of how funding on a local level works but with little time to spare, the Community Foundation of Hancock County is looking to possibly host another Pop Shop later this year, which would allow more time for an in-depth discussion on the financial side of government.
For more information on the Community Foundation of Hancock County or to see when future events are, visit celebratehancock.org
