Rita Stevenson, a Porter County Council member and a 17-year employee in the county clerk's office, wants the council to pressure county department heads to implement common sense personnel practices.

Stevenson doesn't appreciate that employees in other county offices can work through their 15-minute breaks -- they're entitled to two a day -- and log those skipped breaks for a day off every few weeks.

To fight this, the council is talking about purchasing time clocks for county employees.

This situation illustrates well the problem with trying to implement sensible employee policies across county government.

A county personnel policy manual says the practice of skipping breaks and accumulating those minutes for days off is forbidden. But Commissioner Bob Harper says neither the council nor the commissioners are able to enforce those rules. Each department head is an elected official.

Council members should make it clear that this crazy time management practice is taboo, even if it takes putting financial pressure on department heads to make them see the light.

But the council members should also push for reforms recommended by the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform, headed by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard.

The Kernan-Shepard commission recommended radical restructuring of county government so these department heads would be answerable to a single county executive, establishing a clear line of authority.

That's the best way to not only streamline government but make it easier to hold department heads accountable.