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INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana House voted 69-27 Tuesday to combine the offices of state auditor and treasurer.
House Joint Resolution 6 is a constitutional amendment and must be passed by separately elected legislatures. Then Hoosiers would vote on the matter in the 2011 election at the earliest.
The state auditor is charged with paying the state’s bills while the state treasurer invests public dollars.
Under the resolution, the offices would merge into a state controller or chief financial officer. The potential annual cost savings is reported to be $870,000.
“I think it’s incumbent upon us as leaders to lead by example,” said Rep. Mike Murphy, R-Indianapolis. “I find it difficult to vote in favor of (Kernan-Shepard provisions) if we aren’t also willing to look within state government and our own house to see how we can operate more efficiently.”
The Kernan-Shepard report is a bipartisan look at local government reform chaired by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard.
It included recommendations for county government overhaul, including making those local positions appointed rather than elected.
“Drawing on my own experience, the auditor and the treasurer serve as a check and balance on each other,” said Rep. Suzanne Crouch, R-Evansville. “Less government does not mean it’s better government if it’s less accountable.”
Area representatives voting for the resolution were Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale; Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne; Win Moses, D-Fort Wayne and Dave Wolkins, R-Winona Lake.
Those voting against it were Matt Bell, R-Avilla; Randy Borror, R-Fort Wayne; Dick Dodge, R-Pleasant Lake; Dan Leonard, R-Huntington; Matt Lehman, R-Berne; Phyllis Pond, R-New Haven; Bill Ruppel, R-North Manchester; and David Yarde, R-Garrett.
The resolution now moves to the Senate.
The Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a bill allowing Hoosiers to renew their driver’s licenses by mail or the Internet.
Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, said a Bureau of Motor Vehicles customer survey showed this is one of the most requested services.
Hoosiers would be able to renew online or through the mail every other cycle, which would mean a new photograph at least every 12 years. Drivers also must have passed the vision test at the previous in-branch renewal.
The bill now moves to the House.
Republican state legislators are working on a resolution they hope could keep Guantanamo Bay inmates from being moved to the federal prison in Terre Haute.
“It’s unfair simply because we house a federal prison that we might be looked at as a place to harbor these terrorists,” Rep. Bill Davis, R-Portland, said Tuesday.
President Obama has signed an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba within a year, and lawmakers from several states are urging the president to keep detainees out of their backyards. A task force is working on recommendations on where to put the 245 remaining detainees.
Obama has said he is confident that other countries will accept some of the detainees, and several European Union nations have said they are willing to take prisoners being released from Guantanamo if they go through security screenings.
Some Indiana lawmakers worry that the Terre Haute prison could also be on the list. The prison’s Special Confinement Unit houses federal inmates on death row.
The facility has housed dangerous criminals before, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was executed there in 2001.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
