Among Governor Pawlenty’s ideas to deal with Minnesota’s multibillion-dollar budget deficit is a proposal to consolidate the state’s county human services departments into 15 regional operations. His interest in improving the cost effectiveness of government deserves support. Circumstances change and some structures of government that made sense at one time do not necessarily make sense decades or centuries later.
But every established institution or policy creates vested political and economic interests. Change thus is difficult, and many elected officials simply shy away from the challenge. Pawlenty is a welcome exception.
Economic history demonstrates that structuring government effectively is crucial to economic success. The decentralized decision-making inherent in our federal system promoted growth, as did our relatively honest and efficient judiciary and decentralized, responsive local government
But what is an efficient structure in 1809 is not necessarily one in 2009. Technology has changed, particularly in transportation and communication, and an efficient government structure for the founding years of the American republic is not necessarily optimal two centuries later.
At the state level, all states except Nebraska mimic the federal government in having an executive and two separate legislative houses. And until a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s mandated “one man, one vote” for both houses of all state legislatures, states usually mimicked the federal government by having state senators represent established sub-units such as counties without regard to population.
The system of counties and townships was imported from British governance and fortified by the 1787 Northwest Ordinance that established the land survey system based on six-mile-square townships. In areas with few natural boundaries like streams or mountains, it seemed logical to form counties out of these basic 36 square-mile building blocks. Thus my home county, Murray, and many other counties across southern Minnesota are four townships high and five wide. We thus have many counties, 87 in Minnesota, 72 in Wisconsin, 99 in Iowa, 66 in South Dakota and so on.
This was an efficient size for local government in an era before telephones, when roads were not paved and functions like public safety, education, public health, justice and “relief of the poor” were predominantly managed at the county level.
If the seat of such a county was squarely in the center, no citizen had to travel more than 20 miles by horse or buggy to serve on a jury, register a birth or death, obtain a wedding license, report a crime or file a mortgage.
Roads were primitive and most were administered at the township level by an unpaid township board. Each town or country school district had its own board subject to some supervision from the county. And each county had a poor farm to keep the indigent, disabled and mentally ill somewhat above absolute squalor.
This system of local government administration was responsive to local needs and largely dependent on local funding. Many elected officials received small salaries or nothing. Some units were better administered than others, but there was an electoral mechanism to make changes if voters were dissatisfied.
Much has changed. People no longer do the majority of their shopping in the local village with an occasional trip to the larger stores of the county seat. They now drive past a dozen other small towns to reach Sioux Falls, Fargo, Rochester, Marshall or St. Cloud. County seats on interstate highways thrive with Wal-Marts and McDonalds. Those off the interstate network shrink. People have cell phones, Internet access and fax machines.
But we still have separate sheriffs, highway and welfare departments, zoning offices and courthouses in each county. Yes, the court system is integrated with one judge serving multiple counties. Yes, the state has established uniform procedures for county auditors or recorders. Yes, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension backstops local sheriffs and municipal police on important cases.
But, just as for small town banks, an information technology system big enough to serve one entity can probably serve 10 at little additional cost. Purchasing in larger quantities could lower costs. Personnel and financial administration functions are expensive relative to the work force or budget administered.
So there is scope for cost savings. But for a century and a half, rural county seats have grown up around local government being an important part of the local economy and society.
Some people resented the consolidation of country schools into towns. Many resisted the consolidation of small-town schools with those in larger ones. Consolidating school administration into multi-county regions would face even greater resistance.
My sympathies lie with keeping the traditional institutions that served our country well. But my brain says that change must come eventually and that now is a good time for someone like Pawlenty to push the issue. Wish him well.
© 2009 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.