Local governments numerous in Kansas

Dec. 10, 2004

By Mike Corn

The Hays Daily News

Kansas loves its government.

The 3,888 local governments in Kansas as of June 2002 ranked as the fifth highest of all the states. Only Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and California had more governmental agencies than Kansas.

It takes six letter-size sheets of paper for the U.S. Census Bureau to describe the nature of government in Kansas.

There are only 104 county governments in the state, even though there are 105 counties. In 1997, voters in Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., agreed to merge services, and the agency is now known as the Unified Government of Wyandotte County, Kansas City, Kan.

But government is booming in the state's remaining counties.

There are 1,926 sub-county general purpose governments, according to the Census Bureau. They include 627 cities and 1,299 townships.

The cities are broken down into first-, second- and third-class cities, designations based on population. Some townships are inactive and are not counted.

Active township governments exist in 97 of Kansas' 105 Kansas counties, census figures show.

The 2000 census noted 324 public school systems in Kansas, including unified school districts, community college districts and municipal universities.

There are a number of other educational facilities, including interlocal agencies between school districts, vocational-technical schools, educational service centers and special education cooperatives.

And then there are the 1,533 special district governments. They include boards of public utilities, districts that supervise cemeteries, city county-airport authorities, community building districts, conservation, drainage, improvement, hospital and industrial districts. There are library districts and even library boards in Hutchinson and Salina that operate under special provisions not applicable to other library boards.

There are at least five different types of water supply districts in addition to those that are conservation-related or public wholesale water supply districts, such as one created by Hays and Russell.

There is a specific water supply and distribution district in Franklin, Johnson, Miami and Wyandotte counties.

The Census Bureau classifies a number of entities as "subordinate agencies and areas" but they are not counted as governments.

They include the Kansas Turnpike Authority, airport authorities in cities with more than 250,000 residents, business improvement districts, hospital boards in first- and second-class cities and recreation commissions.