Indiana legislator introduces bill to force county officials to come in to work at least 1 day per month

(The Center Square) – If you’re a county officer in Indiana, you’re going to have to show up to work at least one day a month if a bill introduced by a state legislator this year becomes law.

Rep. Mike Aylesworth, R-Hebron, introduced House Bill 1030 to give counties a way to remove someone from office who stops coming to work – not because offices are closed for COVID-19 or because they’re ill or serving in the National Guard, but just because they don’t come in.

“I think everybody that works for the public should put an honest day’s work in for an honest day’s dollar,” says Aylesworth. “And I think most people would agree with that.”

His bill would apply only to the six elected county offices — auditor, recorder, treasurer, surveyor, coroner and assessor.

“They’re not held accountable to anybody but the general public,” says Aylesworth.

And the public usually doesn’t know if county elected officials are actually in the office or doing any work at all.

They only find out, in most cases, if a reporter decides to pursue a story about it. And even when they do, it sometimes doesn’t make much difference.

In Lake County, part of which Aylesworth represents, the county recorder stopped coming in to work after he was accused of sexual harassment in 2017 by a woman who worked under him. The recorder, Michael Brown, reportedly wasn’t in the office for 18 months, though he claimed to be making himself available to employees for questions by phone.

After the newspaper in northwest Indiana wrote about Brown as a no-show at work, he still didn’t come back to the office.

“County officials were frustrated because there was no way to remove him,” says Aylesworth.

Not that they didn’t try.

The Lake County Council subpoenaed him. It also threatened to reduce his salary from $65,000 a year to $1 a year. He reportedly returned to work shortly before the budget was voted on, so his salary remained the same, and was actually increased in 2020, along with the salaries of all county officials.

Brown was never removed from office, and never asked to return any of the salary he was paid while absent. He only left office this month, after completing his term. He’d been term-limited, so wasn’t eligible to run again in 2020 as he’d already served two terms.

And Brown is not the only public official in Lake County who’s been apparently earning a salary while not at work. A councilman from East Chicago was re-elected and sworn in for a second term while serving a prison sentence for several felonies.

Currently, the only way to remove an elected official is through impeachment.

The Lake County Council had looked into how Brown might be impeached and had referred his case to the county prosecutor. But by that time, he’d returned to work.

Aylesworth’s bill says a county officer “must be physically present in the county officer’s office during regular office hours at least one (1) workday each month during the county officer’s term of office.”

It says the county executive may adopt a resolution to remove a county officer who does not show up at least one day a month and must hold a hearing before the resolution is adopted. Once adopted, the resolution is sent to the “county fiscal body” which must also adopt the resolution.

Someone who is removed from office after passage of these two resolutions, which must state the basic facts supporting removal, can petition a court to review the finding, and the bill says the judicial review “shall be determined on an expedited basis.”

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