County Government Structure and County Revenue Policy: What's the Connection?

Abstract

VER THE LAST several decades,county government officials have found themselves in an untenable budgetary dilemma. Simply stated, they have found that it has become much more difficult to raise sufficient revenue to fund county resident demands for the expansion of older traditional services such as roads, welfare, health, police, and courts and the start-up of newer municipal-type services (e.g., fire, utilities, protective inspections, libraries) and regional services (parks and recreation, sewage and solid waste disposal, resource conservation, urban renewal and redevelopment, transit). Although this dilemma has been much more acute in counties experiencing economic decline or a decrease in population, it is also prevalent among economically stable and rapidly growing counties. Contributing to the difficulty of raising enough revenue has been the uncertainty over the continuation of federal aid, adverse economic forces such as inflation and recession, and the erosion of the local property tax base. A particularly vexing problem has been constraints on counties' revenue-raising capability by state constitutions and statutes.County as well as municipal officials in the United States have long complained about the revenue-raising limitations imposed on

Changing Revenue and Expenditure Structure and the Reliance on User Charges and Fees in American Counties, 1972-2002

“…The statistically significant and positive coefficient of administrator or executive form of county (reformed county) demonstrates that counties operating under a modernized structure rely more on user charges and fees than do traditional commission types of counties. As Benton (2003b) predicted, these findings indicate that professional managers in a modernized county government (who tend to value administrative or technical efficiency) appear to rely more on user charges and fees than tax financing. Positive coefficients of population density (0.009) and median household income (4.13) variables indicate that increases in population density and median household income lead to increased reliance on user charges.…”

Reassessing the Link Between City Structure and Fiscal Policy

“…We note that due to data limitations, another important factor is omitted from these models. Benton (2003) has shown that the home rule permitted to local governments is an important determinant of fiscal policy. Each city in this analysis is a home rule city and consequently, shares the same basic set of powers, obligations, millage authority, and debt restrictions with the other cities in the analysis.…”

County Governments: “Forgotten” Subjects in Local Government Courses?

“…Nevertheless, there are a substantial and growing number of county governments that resemble full-service municipal governments. Recent studies have shown that full-service counties tend to be located in urban or metropolitan settings and in the South and West (Benton 2002a), have been or are experiencing moderate to rapid growth in their populations (Benton 2002a) and have modernized their structure of government and operations (Benton 2002a(Benton , 2002b(Benton , 2003a(Benton , 2003b.…”

“…They provide a litany of staple services such as police and fire protection, water=sewer and emergency medical services, garbage collection and disposal, recreational and cultural programs and facilities as well as street lighting, sidewalks, and traffic control, among others. Increasingly, a significant number of county governments also function in a similar capacity, and this is especially the case for highly urban counties, counties experiencing moderate to rapid growth in their populations, counties in the South and West, and counties that have a adopted more modern forms of government (Benton 2002a(Benton , 2002b(Benton , 2003a(Benton , 2003b. However, the increasing importance of counties as full-service governments may not be reflected in the substance of local government courses taught at our colleges and universities.…”