TERRE HAUTE — To a few folks, the concept of public employees voting themselves pay raises by also serving on a city or county council may somehow seem proper. But most Hoosiers would call that situation a blatant conflict of interest.
Well, it happens in Indiana, a lot, because it’s not prohibited here — yet.
Gov. Mitch Daniels has asked the Indiana General Assembly to bar local government employees from serving on the governing body that oversees their jobs. Daniels told the Indianapolis Star, “You ought to make a choice. If you’re going to receive the money, you shouldn’t be part of deciding how to spend the money.”
It’s ridiculous that Daniels even has to utter such an obvious statement. Nonetheless, state legislators should heed it and act now to end this practice.
The Local Government Reform Commission, headed by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard, called for such a ban in its 27-point report last year. The bipartisan Kernan-Shepard panel cited conflicts of interest on municipal boards, and city and county councils around the state. Previously, six of the 29 members of the Indianapolis City-County Council were firefighters or police officers.
Indy isn’t alone. Last week, the Muncie Star reported that a city council member who is also a firefighter defiantly refused to abstain from a vote on, yes, the Muncie firefighters’ union contract. A taxpayer and local business owner in the council meeting’s audience had requested that he abstain from what turned out to be a unanimous vote. He refused.
This conflict of interest has touched Terre Haute, too. In 2007, City Councilmen Norm Loudermilk and Jim Chalos — also city firefighters — voted with four other council members to raise Terre Haute police officers’ and firefighters’ pay 4 percent. Another council member voting among the 6-3 majority, Shelva Warner, was also a retired Police Department employee.
In that same year, most of the other city employees received only a 3.4-percent increase.
Those in favor of allowing public employees to also sit on the governmental board with oversight of their jobs rationalize their dual roles. The inside knowledge, they contend, brings firsthand insight to a city or county council, school board or commission.
That claim doesn’t wash. “Councils can get that same information through committees or panels,” said Orville Powell, who teaches local government administration as a clinical associate professor at Indiana University. “There are many ways for councils to get that information without them sitting on that council.”
Before coming to IU, Powell served as city manager in Winston-Salem and Durham, N.C. His son-in-law is a firefighter. He admires their profession.
“Regardless of how well-meaning the individual is, it’s hard for them to vote for something that may be in the public interest but not in the best interest of the job they’re in,” Powell told the Tribune-Star.
Other backers of the status quo insist voters are aware of the public employees’ roles, and can vote them out of office. That rationalization ignores a core virtue of our democracy: The American system of government is built on checks and balances that are present during daily governmental functions, not just once every four years.
Our elected officials should serve only one master — the people.
