For some time now, I’ve had a growing suspicion that the calls to “consolidate” local governments, perhaps even up to and including the county level, have less to do with saving money and more to do with increasing political control from a centralized source. It seems to me that sharing some services may make sense (police, fire, public works, human resources, etc.), but a wholesale consolidation and elimination of local political representation is, in my opinion, a dead issue. And for our local leaders to continue harping on it is a complete waste of time and money.

Here’s a few facts and figures on consolidation of local governments in the U.S. The data comes from a study done by Marshall University (of “We Are Marshall” fame), prepared for the West Virginia Legislature in 2005:

It is true that most attempts at consolidation in recent history have not been successful. There are no examples of county and county mergers. There have been only 32 successful mergers of cities with their counties since 1805 and with 22 happening in the last 40 years. Since 1990 there have been 17 attempts at consolidation with only four successes.

Did you catch that? There have been NO county mergers EVER. What folly is it to talk about splitting Tioga County into pieces and annexing a piece to Broome, a piece to Tompkins, and a piece to Chemung Counties. Folks, it ain’t happening. And of the 17 attempts at consolidation of cities with counties since 1990, only four have succeeded.

The report gives a detailed analysis of different types of consolidation, the benefits and pitfalls, along with some rather insightful conclusions, among which are these:

All unification or reorganization efforts have taken a long time to gain sufficient public support for passage. It is not unusual for the process to take ten to over 30 years. Resistance to change is based in fear and those fears must be overcome. That is not a process that can be hurried. (emphasis mine)

Most successful reorganizations are characterized by a process involving a few functions which expand to a much larger number as experience builds both trust and competency.

And perhaps the most interesting finding of all:

In most cases it is true when consolidation or reorganization takes place; the initial impact is higher costs. (emphasis mine)

Wait a minute! I thought consolidation was supposed to LOWER costs! Not according to the data. Maybe there are lowered costs in (far) future years, but you don’t get lower costs initially for some time (a number of years).

I don’t know about you, but I like the fact I can call up my local political representatives, whether it be my City of Binghamton Councilman, or my County Legislator, or the Mayor, et al. I think consolidating and eliminating local political representation is not a smart move. And doing it for cost savings is a farce. Check into shared services all you want, but as for political consolidation? A dead issue.

What do you think? Agree or disagree, leave me a comment.

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