Gov. Mitch Daniels’ push to reshape the face of local government in Indiana started with such fanfare.

But with only a year left before he hands over the keys to the governor’s office to a new occupant, most of the proposed reforms have been watered down or have fizzled out.

Who knew that putting Indiana on daylight saving time and leasing the Indiana Toll Road — initiatives that took Daniels only one legislative session to accomplish — would be easier than making local government smaller and more efficient?

Just think: When Daniels started his drive for local government reform, one goal was to eliminate the 1,008 townships in Indiana — or at least see many merged.

Today, there are 1,006 townships, with one more preparing to merge with its local town.

The issue has been on Daniels’ wish list almost from the start. In 2006, his second year in office, Daniels called for steps to lower property taxes by encouraging consolidation and collaboration by local government.

In July 2007, he appointed a commission, led by Chief Justice Randall Shepard and former Gov. Joe Kernan, to examine an overhaul of local government.

After letting the commission’s 27 recommendations percolate with the public for a year, Daniels in December 2008 launched a campaign to get 20 of them enacted by the legislature. They included eliminating townships, replacing three-member county commissions with a single executive and enacting laws banning local officials from hiring their relatives.

One reform gaining

A handful of reforms have become law, including moving the cost of child welfare from the counties to the state and moving property assessments to the county from the townships in all but 13 densely populated townships where voters opted against the switch.

But most of the proposals remain unfinished business for Daniels, with his final legislative session scheduled to end March 14.

Daniels made a final pitch for the reforms in his State of the State address earlier this month. Noting that Shepard is about to retire, Daniels told lawmakers that the best way to honor him was to pass more of the reforms. Shepard got a big ovation. But the reforms? Just a smattering of applause.

Even with a solidly Republican Senate and House, most of the reforms, particularly eliminating townships, face an uphill battle.

“It is so politically charged,” said Mark Lawrance, an Indiana Chamber of Commerce lobbyist who has been trying to shepherd the reforms through the legislature since 2009. “As (former U.S. House Speaker) Tip O’Neill said, ‘All politics is local.’ ”

Lawrance and others said so many lawmakers either got their start in local government or depend on local government employees as their political foot soldiers that they’re loath to make them unemployed. In addition, lawmakers have resented the one-size-fits-all nature of the Kernan-Shepard recommendations. What works for an urban county, they say, may be wrong for a rural county.

Still, at least one reform seems headed for passage this session: elimination of nepotism and conflicts of interest. Similar bills on the issue are moving through the House and Senate, getting unanimous votes of approval in both chambers’ committees.

Rep. Kevin Mahan, the Hartford City Republican who is heading the House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee, is the chief sponsor of the House version, House Bill 1005. He already has 57 co-sponsors, he said, easily giving the bill a majority in the 100-member House.

“That bill’s got rockets on it,” said Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville.

So what’s different this year when in previous years it couldn’t get off the launching pad?

It’s been altered — and some would say weakened.

In previous years, the bill banned local employees such as police and firefighters from running for office. This year’s proposal lets them keep their jobs until they get elected.

And while the bill bans a local officeholder from directly overseeing a relative who works in local government, there are exceptions. Volunteer firefighters would be exempt from the nepotism rule. Sheriffs could still hire their spouses to be jail matrons. Coroners could become a deputy coroner after leaving office even if the new coroner is a relative.

And township trustees who have their office in their home could hire one relative, but at a salary of no more than $5,000 annually.

Attempts to further amend the bill are under way, including exempting volunteer firefighters from the conflict of interest provisions so they can serve on town boards and other bodies.

That worries Lawrance, who noted that “if there are many other exceptions or carve-outs put into it, the bill just gets to be where you’re exempting everybody.”

Other efforts stalled

Facing a more difficult path are bills to eliminate township advisory boards and to let people in each county vote on whether to replace a three-member commission with a single county executive.

Daniels and legislators have pretty much thrown in the towel on eliminating townships outright.

“I am not going to put any lawmaker in a position to give an up-or-down vote on whether to eliminate townships or trustees,” said Mahan, a former Blackford County sheriff. “I know there’s a big movement for that here in Marion County. But just because it’s good for Marion County doesn’t mean it’s good for all 92 counties.”

The focus now is on letting voters decide the fate of townships in each county or at least jettisoning advisory boards in favor of letting the county council oversee trustees. Mahan’s committee could vote this week on House Bill 1254, which eliminates township advisory boards, creates countywide referendums to eliminate townships and, if townships are kept, creates a board of all the township trustees to consolidate public safety issues including fire departments and 911 calls.

But even that is facing resistance from lawmakers who fear township issues would not get enough attention from a county council.

Rep. Ralph Foley, the Martinsville Republican who is the author of HB 1254, noted Indiana is one of 20 states with townships.

“We love our government,” he said of the reluctance to dump them.

Mahan said he supports the idea of eliminating advisory boards even though his mother, Gloria, a Democrat, has served on a township advisory board for years.

“She gets it,” Mahan said, noting it’s about more efficient government.

“To me, you’re the trustee. If you think we ought to have a firetruck, go buy a firetruck,” he said. “When I was sheriff, I didn’t have an advisory board to advise me on how to run the jail and whether I was going to buy a squad car.”

Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville, chairwoman of the Senate Local Government Committee, said she is not pursuing any township changes this year. After ushering them through the Senate in the past only to see them die in the House, she wants the House to act first this time.

But her committee voted 6-3 recently in favor of Senate Bill 110, which sets up several ways for county government or the taxpayers themselves to seek a referendum on whether to replace commissions with a single county executive.

Three Democrats voted against the bill, agreeing with Ron Smith, president of the Indiana Association of County Commissioners, that this was an Indianapolis-dictated solution in search of a problem.

“It’s coming from the Statehouse,” Smith said at the hearing. “It’s not coming from any constituency. We are not faced with public outcry.”

Lawson, Mahan and others pursuing the reforms said the fight won’t end with Daniels’ term.

“As long as I’m chairing Local Government,” Lawson said, “the subject is open.”