Friday, June 15, 2007

Counties – Question 3

Question for Cequita D and Coshendra J. What about the structure of county government makes reform and uniform centralized control and responsibility so difficult? This is part of the explanation to the saying in South Carolina that “counties can’t govern.”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The structure of county government makes reform, uniform centralized control, and responsibility so difficult because the lack of communication. Each county has their on set of rules and regulations and when someone comes in and tries to challenge those rules or try and change them the county government officials become threaten.

Cequita D Edmond

Robert Botsch, USCA Political Science said...

Cequita does not quite have it. If we are to have someone in charge that can be fairly held accountable for what happens in a county, that person (or group of people in some kind of legislative body, like a council) must occupy the top of a pyramid structure and be able to issue orders to those below them.

In S.C. counties we have a lot of independently elected offices that are not under the county council because of some state requirement -- sheriff, treasurer, auditor, clerk of court and all the offices that are required to be housed and funded to carry out state functions. The council has minimal control over all thesse things. Thus it is said that "counties cannot govern."

Bob B