On January 12, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard SB 37 on population parameters authored by Sen. Ford. The bill amends various statutes to update population parameters for political subdivisions based on the 2020 decennial census. The bill also updates multipliers that are based on a county’s population and used in determining distributions made by the department of correction to county misdemeanant funds and removes language providing that changes to boundaries of certain political subdivisions may not take effect during the year immediately before the year a federal decennial census is conducted. The executive director of the Legislative Services Agency testified on the bill.
On January 19, the bill was amended by consent to remove St. Joseph County from the list of counties to which a statute applies separating the powers and duties of the county executive and the county council into distinct executive and legislative powers and duties. The amendment also provides that any county may elect this form of county government structure if the county executive adopts an ordinance or a resolution electing this structure for county government and that such an ordinance or a resolution may have retroactive effect. Under current law, both the county executive and the county legislative body must adopt such ordinances or resolutions to adopt this county government structure. The amendment also makes corresponding changes to the statutes that describe the structures of the county executive and the county council.
The amended bill passed 9-0.
Read the bill at: http://iga.in.gov/legislative/2022/bills/senate/37