INDIANAPOLIS | If you boot them, the money will come.

Region legislators pressed ahead Monday with legislation allowing Gov. Mitch Daniels to dump the 11 members of the Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission. The levee panel, blamed for fall flooding that damaged more than 4,000 region homes, would be replaced with five appointees of the Republican governor.

The commission overhaul, House Bill 1716, is seen as a first step to securing up to $15 million from the state to complete the levee project and repay a loan of up to $6 million from the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority. But a cost range of $13.5 million to $15 million still is only a best guess.

"We need greater accountability. We need transparency, and we need to get this thing done," said Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso.

State lawmakers created the commission 28 years ago to oversee construction of about 25 miles of protective levees from Gary to the Illinois border. But about two miles of levees and $30 million in work remains.

Soliday is sponsoring the levee commission overhaul, which advanced Monday to the full Senate on a 9-1 vote of the Senate Natural Resources Committee. He and others argue that having mayors and other regional officials make five appointments to the levee commission has dulled the panel's focus.

A House-passed version of a new state budget includes $9 million for the Little Calumet commission, which would cover a $6 million match needed to unlock $24 million in federal funding.

The state Senate will present its budget plan next week. One thing is clear: The $2 million Daniels offered in his budget proposal would not go very far.

"The $2 million in the budget will absolutely do very little or nothing," said Sen. Frank Mrvan, D-Hammond. "This is important. What's most important is the people don't suffer again like they did in September."