Little has changed in county governments over the years

Dec. 19, 2004

By MARY CLARKIN

The Hutchinson News

Latin origins for "consolidate" - combining "together" and "to make solid" - offer no hint the word can be inflammatory.

John Divine used the word when he ran for Saline County commissioner this fall. He lost.

Rep. Marti Crow, D-Leavenworth, promotes consolidation of the district court system in Kansas. She won enough votes to keep her job, but her ideas have failed to muster needed support.

In 2002, Kansas' nearly 4,000 local governments put it on the U.S. Census' Top 10 list of states with the most government units. Consolidations and mergers are so rare that they generate headlines throughout the state when they do occur. Such was the case in April 2003 when voters in Bazine USD 304 and Ransom USD 302, with a combined student population of 215, voted to merge.

Not even the Kansas Taxpayers Network, a watchdog group, is beating the drum for government consolidation. The record of mergers, said Executive Director Karl Peterjohn, is "mixed at best."

"Often there's no net savings for taxpayers," he said. "It's just like reshuffling the deck chairs on the cruise ship."

A bigger government, Peterjohn cautioned, is not necessarily more effective. In theory, though, he allowed that consolidation - if done correctly - can save money.

---

There have been just 33 mergers of city and county governments in the United States since 1805.

That led state researchers to conclude in a report published by the Legislative Division of Post Audit in September 2003 that the potential for additional city-county mergers in Kansas appeared small.

Kansas' lone entry among the 33 mergers was the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., created in 1997.

Leaders there credit the unified government with enabling the economic development boon in Wyandotte. There is no talk of returning to separate city and county governments.

Potentially, Wyandotte could be joined some day by another city-county government in Kansas. Shawnee County voters agreed in November to ask the Legislature for a commission that would outline a consolidation plan.

That circuitous route to achieving desired change at the local level is part of the problem, according to the Kansas Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations.

The 2005 Kansas Legislature, which convenes Jan. 10, should "act quickly to authorize a process" so the citizens of Shawnee County or any county interested in reorganization of local government, have the power and a method for action, the advisory council urged.

---

The 2002 Legislature created the Kansas Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations to study government structure and find efficiencies.

But the state audit report published in September 2003 described a languishing council that had never met.

That embarrassing disclosure resulted in change.

"We've certainly stepped it up," said council member Tim Norton, a Sedgwick County commissioner.

The council includes city, county, school and township representatives, as well as four state legislators. It has met six times since late September 2003. It filed its 2004 Annual Report on Dec. 1, attaching two proposals for the 2005 Kansas Legislature.

It recommended approval of legislation next year to ease the ability of cities and counties to consider consolidation and the ability of counties to change boundary lines to accommodate multi-county consolidation.

"We believe that the citizens of Kansas counties deserve the strongest measure of local control and self-determination," stated the proposal submitted by council chairman Michael Boehm, the mayor of Lenexa.

"Whether the word 'consolidation' is really the word you want to use or is it 'unification' or is it 'merger' - we're talking about all those things," Norton said.

"Nothing's off the table."

---

One factor discouraging collaboration among local governments, the 2003 audit report stated, was "fear of losing local control of how services are provided." The fear is not baseless, officials note.

Ripples in the wake of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services' shutdown of 56 of its 105 county offices reached into Greeley County in western Kansas. The closing translated into two lost jobs.

Consolidation also can extract a price in time, opponents in rural counties say, whether that means longer rides on the school bus or trips to larger counties if court consolidation eliminates rural judges.

Kansas has many small towns with populations that shrank even more when their schools were boarded up.

Nashville, where City Councilman Gary Westerman grew up, once had three schools. First, St. John Lutheran grade school closed. Then Nashville High School locked the doors in 1966, two years after Westerman graduated.

"They went round and round and round and round to try to keep that school," he said.

The town's public grade school folded last, more than two decades ago.

Today, Nashville has a co-op and an insurance agency. A grant helped build a community center in the 1990s, and senior citizens gather there for meals.

The Kingman County town's surviving church, St. John, has only a couple youths in Sunday school.

"Our town's still here," said Westerman, "but it just keeps dwindling."

---

As the Legislative Division of Post Audit team studied the potential for improving cooperation and reducing duplication among local governments, it zeroed in on three counties: Dickinson, Sedgwick and Douglas.

There were significantly more examples of city-county cooperation in Douglas County than in the other two counties, researchers found.

In Sedgwick County, for example, Wichita maintained 79 parks, while the county maintained two.

City officials told the researchers they had offered to take over park maintenance, but the county declined.

In Dickinson County, the researchers calculated $65,000 could be saved if the county took over road grading for townships. In fact, most counties already have assumed maintenance of township roads.

Township officials cited concerns about the quality and frequency of county service, however, and Dickinson County officials did not want to force the issue.

Also in Dickinson County, the county has a 911 emergency system, but Herington continues to operate its own 911 system.

Herington residents are taxed for the duplicated service, and the Dickinson County emergency communications director acknowledged the two systems have resulted in confusion for first responders.

---

In the executive summary of the 2003 audit report, the authors wrote:

"Opportunities to consolidate or share resources among local governmental entities are plentiful. ... The difficulty lies in getting local government officials to seek out and embrace those opportunities, and to work together to change the status quo.

"Concerns about losing local control, fear that service levels will deteriorate, lack of political will to make a change, distrust or competition among government entities, a desire to buy locally, and fear that costs or benefits won't be equally shared are all factors that discourage local collaborative efforts."

As for the local authorities, the researchers said they saw themselves "as looking out for their constituents' best interest." The state also drew blame.

The audit revealed, for example that the state requires county treasurers and county clerks to maintain duplicate bookkeeping records. Amend the law, the report urged.

---

There is little the state can do to encourage reorganization or intergovernmental cooperation if local officials aren't interested, the audit report concluded.

"Maybe it shouldn't be surprising that people have become comfortable with their multitudinous local government," said James Nowlan, a former Illinois state representative and professor with the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs.

Illinois topped the 2002 U.S. Census list of states having the most local governments.

Nowlan described two groups: People who like the status quo - perhaps because their jobs could be at stake - and a larger number, the majority, only "passively interested in change."

"Probably the small number is going to trump the passive majority," he said. Catalysts for change can come from unexpected quarters.

Post-World War II Illinois had about 11,000 school districts, many of them township-level one-room schools, Nowlan said.

The Illinois Farm Bureau leadership, Nowlan said, jumpstarted a school district consolidation that reduced the count to about a couple thousand.

"I'm assuming it was a combination of desire for better rural education and for what might have been thought to be tax savings," said Nowlan, theorizing on the impetus.

"The illustration shows that such a process can be jumpstarted if an important organization sees the rationales for doing so."