Daniels said he would seek consolidation of some areas of local government as one of his administration's goals for the 10-week legislative session that started Tuesday.
Among those are the centralization of fire service resources at the county level, similar to what was done with library services.
"I hope for the last time I've gone somewhere where someone proudly shows me the new half-million-dollar firetruck, and three blocks away, literally, they've just bought another one because that's a different township," Daniels said.
Local control and local departments will continue to exist, "but we ought to be making the resource decisions at a level that guarantees the service is really uniform and complete, and that we're not doubling up on spending," he said.
Township advisory boards also will be targets.
"That would be another 3,000 politicians that we don't really need," Daniels said.
His administration also will take aim at city and county employees serving on their communities' legislative bodies, Daniels said.
"You've got people voting on their own pay increases. You've got people countermanding the decisions of their own management," Daniels said. "That's as direct a conflict of interest as you can have, and we ought to part with it."
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake ... 99521.html