Friday, June 15, 2007
Counties – Question 2
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- Robert Botsch, USCA Political Science
- I am the one on the right! I have been a professor of political science at USCA since 1978. We will use this blog for class discussion and for posting written assignments that I may make. When you post you may do so using the anonymous profile, but please sign your name to all your posts! Posts are shown REVERSE chronological order. The most recent post is at the top. So READ FROM THE BOTTOM UP in the topics shown in the BLOG ARCHIVE above.
2 comments:
In today’s society counties play four main roles for their citizens. They are the administrative arm of the state; They deliver state programs, carry out mandated state programs. They are also the traditional government; also mandated, constitutional, and frequently provided by elected office holders. This would be like sheriffs, assessors, and tax administration, courts, county hospitals, road construction and maintenance. The third role is being the local government. These are services that fall into three categories, municipal, services with cities and towns, and services responding to constituent requests. The municipal category deals with the planning and zoning of the county. The last role is regional government. Here air quality control, growth management, and
economic development are all included.
-Kaycee Doying
Except for a couple of minor quibbles, Kaycee got it all correct. Counties have a dual role. The first is the role of administrative unit for the state, and this has remained relatively the same, though as states have become more active, they have passed on more of these duties to the counties. I would include under this all the separately elected offices that are county-level (which terribly fragments county government -- a major theme in understanding counties).
The second role is as a local government, and this is one that has changed dramatically -- today counties do much of what municipalities do -- municipla-like services -- but they do it for unincorporated areas. However, in some cases they work with municipalities and jointly provide services, for example, a county-wide water and/or sewer system.
Let me add a current event that illustrates the limits that still exist on counties (and cities) in South Carolina. One major component in the fight over the 2007-8 state budget that is going on today in Columbia is all the "pork-barrel" projects that do things in cities and counties like libraries and so on. Cindy Ross Scoppi wrote in a very insightful editorial today (June 19) that the reason legislators do this for local government is that they have so limited the ability of local governments to raise money that the legislature has to provide these things if they are to exist. This keeps the legislature heavily involved in local government -- exactly what home rule was supposed to end!
Bob B
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