Curing Local Government Parochialism
Freeing Local Government from Traditional Legal Structures
This is another commentary in Civic Way’s series on reconstructing American government, a more detailed look at the issues presented in our last newsletter. The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving governmental agencies across the US. Our earlier commentary on the collapse of American Federalism provides a useful foundation for this analysis of local government.
Highlights
The US has 90,075 local governments, of which 38,779 are general-purpose governments like cities and counties and 51,296 are special-purpose governments like school districts and special districts
Due to the failure of local government to keep pace with our escalating regionalization, economic competition, regional problem-solving, cross-jurisdictional cost-sharing and urban vitality suffer
Our calcified local government structure has produced a byzantine, inefficient patchwork of local governments with starkly different sizes, missions, capabilities and reputations
Special districts, often formed to address needs unmet by general-purpose governments, have exhibited some problems with oversight, voter participation, management and costs
The pandemic offers a historic opportunity to modernize our local government structures
Introduction
Bashing government is a favored American pastime. Yet, we maintain our grip on local government as if hanging from a cliff. As the pandemic has so vividly revealed, our local governments—no matter how hard they try, no matter how talented or dedicated their workers—are not designed for a global calamity.
Still, we defend—or endure—a local government structure that is more suited to parochial sentiments than modern challenges. Why?
Local governments are not only the closest form of government to the people, they are the people. Local government workers—police, firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers, EMTs, social workers, clerks—are us, our family, friends and neighbors. We call them on the phone. We see them at meetings or at the grocery store. We know their faces and may even know their names. This familiarity breeds trust.
Inertia is another reason. We dread change, at least until the status quo becomes intolerable. We accept antiquated civil structures, like those restraining our local governments, until those structural fossils disrupt our livelihoods or lives. This acquiescence empowers those running fiefdoms threatened by new structures—for instance, the innumerable elected officials who stand to lose their lofty positions—to kill even the most civic-minded reform initiatives.
Public ignorance is another factor. We know so little about local government. As long as we get the services we need and the serenity we expect, we rarely ask questions. We may whine some about local taxes, but few of us take the time to ask serious questions about how those taxes are spent, especially across jurisdictions.
So, we doze. Immersed in the day-to-day, blissfully unaware of current inefficiencies or future threats. Leaving local government untouched in the face of growing evidence of the need for bold structural change.
A Brief Profile of Local Government
Local government is vital—we can neither prosper nor progress without it. It is the first public line of defense against grave threats. Its proximity sharpens its problem-solving focus. The governing philosophies of most local leaders tend to skew less ideological than those of their federal or state counterparts.
In the aggregate, local government has become central to our lives and economy. According to the Urban Institute, local governments spent over $1.6 trillion in FY17, mostly on public safety, schools, social services, health and infrastructure. According to the US Census Bureau, local governments employed 14.2 million workers before the pandemic (in contrast, state governments employed 5.5 million workers).
The US has a surprising number and array of local governments. According to the US Census Bureau, the US has 90,075 local governments, of which 38,779 are general-purpose governments and 51,296 are special-purpose governments. While the definitions vary by state, about 50 percent of the general-purpose entities are municipalities (cities), 42 percent are towns (townships) and 8 percent county entities (e.g., counties, parishes and boroughs). About 27 percent of the special-purpose governments are school districts and 73 percent are special districts (e.g., fire, utility, transit, hospital, parks and library districts).
Comparing Local Governments
Let’s start with the general-purpose entities, the jacks-of-all-trades. There are about 19,500 incorporated municipalities, cities or towns. While their relative capacities, capabilities and performance vary widely, they share one trait—they deliver (or try to deliver) a broad array of public services.
When we think of local governments, we most frequently think of cities—New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia. However, while a lot of us live in municipalities, they only represent about 21 percent of all local governments. And most municipalities are quite small. The US Census estimates that about 76 percent of municipalities serve less than 5,000 residents and 42 percent serve less than 500 residents. Small and large municipalities have little in common.
Township or town governments are allowed in 20 Northeastern and Midwestern states. Their authorities, roles and services vary by state. Most are very small. Of the 16,504 township or town governments, 93 percent serve less than 10,000 residents and 52 percent serve less than 1,000 residents. Since 1997, there has been a slight decline in the number of townships, mostly in the Midwest.
The US has 3,143 county entities, including 3,007 counties, 64 parishes (Louisiana), 19 boroughs (Alaska), 41 independent cities and several consolidated city-counties. Counties were preceded by shires which Virginia established in 1634. County entities spend over $550 billion per year to serve 310 million residents.
County governments generally operate under more stringent legal constraints than municipalities (i.e., states give them less latitude). Geographically, they nearly serve the entire nation (a feature that informs our thinking on potential regional government models). That is, their jurisdictional borders leave few parts of America ungoverned (Connecticut and Rhode Island have counties, but no county governments).
Special-purpose entities, all 51,296 of them, are essentially quiet expressions of resignation. Many are workarounds to attain goals neglected or unmet by general-purpose entities.
Independent school districts arose during the 19th and 20th centuries because of a rising awareness of public education’s value to the nation. But, if the general-purpose entities of that day had been meeting this need, school districts may have never seen the light of day. Today, they are a fact of life. Nearly 60 percent (8.3 million) of all local government employees work in public education, primarily elementary and secondary education. School districts in the Midwest and West tend to cross municipal boundaries while those in the East tend to honor municipal or county boundaries. In nine states, school districts are subordinate to general-purpose entities.
Some special districts arose gradually to meet needs not fully met by general-purpose governments—like pest control, soil conservation, forest preservation, parks and libraries. Many were established to meet emerging public challenges like airports, urban transit and wastewater treatment. Today, special districts spend more than municipalities, with much of this spending financed by debt. Governing independence and accountability vary widely by state and entity.
The Failure to Act Regionally
Local governments are failing us. Not because they are inept or indifferent. Most local governments, in fact, have improved over the last few decades. They have become—incrementally, yet inexorably and measurably—more efficient and effective than they were in the 1970s or 1980s. But such advances, while laudable, are no match for the challenges of the moment, and of tomorrow.
They are failing us mostly because of the aging legal structures and rigid jurisdictional borders in which they are imprisoned. Coupled with increasingly regional—if not global—threats. Archaic laws. Hidebound fiscal rules. Federal paralysis. State interference. Suspicious, even hostile, local fiefdoms. Overlapping service demands. Strained revenues. Unreasonable public expectations.
Local governments fail mostly because they are not designed to think and act regionally. Despite extensive think tank studies and expert commentaries echoing that point, does it really matter? If so, why?
It matters. The US has become a nation of regions. Not states, not cities, but urban regions. Our population is growing in urban regions, without regard to traditional jurisdictional borders. Since 2010, American Community Survey's 53 largest metro areas, with 56 percent of the total US population, accounted for 93 percent of the nation’s population growth. Rural areas, which cover 97 percent of the nation’s land area, now contain only 19 percent of the population. By 2050, it is estimated that at least 70 percent of the US population will be clustered around metro regions.
To illustrate, North Carolina has 100 counties, 552 municipalities, 266 special districts and 115 school districts. The state is increasingly dominated by two metro areas—Charlotte and the Research Triangle (Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill)—but it really has become a state of at least six emerging economic regions, including Charlotte, Research Triangle, Piedmont (anchored by Greensboro and Winston-Salem), Southeast (Wilmington and Fayetteville), Northeast (near Virginia Beach) and Western North Carolina (Asheville). There is little alignment between these regions and the state’s 1,033 local governments.
As metro regions have eclipsed local government structures and borders, several problems have arisen. First, as the economic development landscape has become more national and global, the limitations of provincial economic development programs have become more apparent. Fierce parochial competition for jobs among localities has compromised some economic development efforts. The classic example is in metro Kansas City where the states of Kansas and Missouri have used costly tax incentives to lure firms just a few miles across the state line. For a handful of jobs, states and localities squander millions in future resources.
Inadequate regional collaboration and governance bring other burdens. Local governments find it increasingly difficult to solve problems that cross jurisdictional borders (e.g., housing, pollution and infrastructure). Local governments find many interlocal efficiencies beyond their reach (e.g., shared services and joint infrastructure financing). Finally, moat cities like Cleveland and St. Louis, encircled by smaller municipalities, struggle to compete with unrestricted cities like Columbus and capture a share of regional growth.
The Structural Inefficiencies of Local Government
Most local government officials, managers and employees do the best with what they have. But no business leader worth his or her salary would tolerate a flawed organizational structure if it threatened the firm’s short-term profitability or long-term competitiveness.
In the US, we abide a byzantine quilt of local governments with starkly different sizes, missions, capabilities and reputations, the predictable product of a calcified, deeply inefficient local government structure. Over 90,000 local governments, some with overlapping jurisdictions and duplicative services. All with their own elected officials, authorities, bureaucracies and legal regimes.
Local government fragmentation varies a lot by state. Governing Magazine, using the ratio of local governments per 100,000 residents, found seven states with less than ten local governments per 100,000 residents—Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia, Nevada, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina—and seven states with over 100 local governments per 100,000 residents—North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas, Vermont and Montana. Using this ratio, North Dakota has 235 times more local entities than Hawaii on a per capita basis.
General-purpose local governments serve an average 6,200 persons each. The states with the most general-purpose local governments (without regard to population) are Illinois (2,828), Minnesota (2,720), Pennsylvania (2,625) and Ohio (2,327). The states with the most counties are Texas (254), Georgia (159), Virginia (133), Kentucky (120) and Missouri (115). Delaware and Hawaii have the fewest counties.
Here are some stories of local government proliferation in just a few states:
North Dakota – 2,666 local governments—the most per capita—including 1,300 townships (82 percent of which have less than 100 residents) and 942 special districts to provide services not provided by townships
South Dakota – the second most local governments per capita of the 50 states
Illinois – the most total local governments (7,000 per the 2010 census and 8,466 per the state controller), including over 1,400 townships overlaying cities, towns and counties; the Chicago region has over 280 municipalities and 15 public housing authorities
New Jersey – 565 municipalities, of which nearly 200 serve less than 5,000 residents; while the state merged many school districts, it still has 545 districts (144 of which have only one school)
Georgia – the Atlanta metro area grew from 5 counties in 1970 to 29 counties in 2010 and Fulton County has spawned four new cities in the last 10 years (serving about 10 percent of total residents)
Special districts, created to address very specific service gaps, are not without problems. Even where they exist to address unmet needs, they can encounter fragmentation. Take transit, for instance. For every metro area with a truly regional system, there is another with fragmented systems. The Bay Area has multiple transit systems. The Chicago metro area has three transit agencies. As illustrated by the John Oliver video clip below, some special districts are plagued by such issues as poor oversight, low voter participation, high costs and corruption.
The Messy Politics of Local Government
Local governments use different management forms. And with different management forms come different politics. Generally, the more decentralized the management form, the messier the politics. Most municipalities have centralized management, with nearly all employees reporting to a chief executive officer (e.g., mayor or city manager) or council, and a clear demarcation between the executive and legislative functions.
In contrast, most counties are highly decentralized. Most counties use a commission form with a board of commissioners performing executive and legislative functions. Some counties use an executive form with an elected chief executive officer. Nearly all counties have multiple independent elected officials (e.g., Sheriffs, District Attorneys, Treasurers, Auditors, Clerks, Recorders and Coroners). Some county functions, like education, social services, public health and mental health, are supervised by independent bodies.
What are the implications? Our 3,100 counties are governed by 37,984 elected officials, including 19,355 commissioners and executives (e.g., Supervisors and Jurors) and 18,629 independently elected constitutional officers. The independently elected county sheriff is the poster child of messy politics. Constitutionally required in some states, independently elected sheriffs develop their own political constituencies. Many have adopted dubious (if not scandalous) hiring, jail management and enforcement policies. Such abuses should be addressed before repurposing county governments as regional governments.
The Opportunity for Bold Reforms
US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once touted states as laboratories of democracy, observing that state governments, under federalism, could test innovative public policy ideas that, once proven, could be adopted throughout the nation. Contemporary thought leaders also have suggested that large cities could perform a similar role as innovators and change agents.
A noble thought, but largely a pipedream. Our national politics have contaminated our states, dividing them into red and blue states. Many states have moved from a mere neglect of urban needs to brazen interference. State laws written by national groups like ALEC and lobbyists representing national interests. Ideologically-soaked preemption statutes curbing municipal powers. If we rely on state and local governments—at least as they are now structured—for new ideas, we will do so at our peril.
The pandemic offers a historic opportunity to modernize our outdated governmental structures. The nation’s sputtering response to the pandemic, exacerbated by anemic leadership, fragmented governments and sporadic collaboration, could make more Americans receptive to bold reforms. A new local government structure, one that facilitates regional collaboration, will enhance our global competitiveness, regional problem-solving, local cost-effectiveness and civic accountability. See our next commentary for more on viable strategies.