No mergers, but counties do cooperate, share to get things done

DECORAH - The concept of counties came from England. Its American definition - the one that still cuts at its own existence - came from Iowa.

In 1868, Iowa Supreme Court Justice John Dillon ruled, in an opinion cited for the past 140 years, that counties - and cities, for that matter - only have the power to follow orders. They must do what state legislators tell them to do.

Ever since, county governments in Iowa have faced the question: What's the point? Almost all of Iowa's 99 counties have eight or 10 elected officials who run an organization for which the biggest decisions are made by someone else.

Critics argue county duties should be consolidated and more of the administration handed over to appointed professionals. In 2004, voters in Polk County were asked if they wanted to combine the county with the city of Des Moines, and they said no. The measure was defeated by 30 percentage points. Radical restructuring of local government, not surprisingly, hasn't found itself on the state Legislature's agenda.

Yet consolidation is happening in subtle ways all over the state. Small counties are banding together, sharing employees and equipment, and cooperating like never before. Consolidation in name may be distant, but consolidation in fact is under way.

Northeast Iowa

One example is Winneshiek, Allamakee, Fayette and Clayton counties, which make up the northeast corner of Iowa. The 2008 estimated population for the four counties is 73,000.

Among them they have 34 elected county officials, whose salaries total $1.4 million. If those 34 positions were trimmed to 10, almost $1 million could be saved in salaries. Additional savings could come from merging county departments.

Fat chance, said Dean Darling, chairman of the Winneshiek County Board of Supervisors.

“That's something the Legislature would have to impose, because undoubtedly there would be a lot of turf issues,” Darling said. “I just don't see that happening from the bottom up.”

What is happening from the bottom up are several practical, less politically hazardous consolidations.

Sitting in the boardroom inside the Winneshiek County Courthouse in Decorah, a snow-frosted ridge to the east viewable through the window, Darling and his four colleagues have to decide whether to support a road project in Ossian, a town south of Decorah. The project needs an endorsement from the supervisors but cannot be funded without approval from a regional Transportation Policy Board. Darling is also on the transportation board. So a minor decision is before him as a supervisor (whether to recommend) and the more substantive decision (whether to approve) would come before him later in his role on the regional board.

This is a theme in northeast Iowa. Five counties - including Howard to the west - share secondary-roads equipment and a single landfill near Decorah. They share a mental health coordinator and plow each others' roads where it makes sense. The five boards of supervisors meet quarterly, as do the county engineers.

Clayton County Supervisor Larry Gibbs said they may hire a joint inspector, through the regional council of governments, to monitor the five counties' 1,244 bridges.

“That is one thing that definitely has developed over the last decade or so, is just that understanding of what it means to participate beyond your borders,” said Bill Peterson, director of the Iowa State Association of Counties. “The elected officials that are most successful recognize that it's not just what happens within their geographic areas.”

Small counties increasingly see themselves as part of regions based on economics and geography. Boards of supervisors must find ways to save their flagging communities and get help planning for the future, distributing disaster funds, lobbying lawmakers, managing federal housing programs, seeking private grants and latching onto federal transportation money.

To do all this, supervisors are sinking more of their time and energy into regional planning commissions, councils of government, economic development groups and transportation planning commissions.

Working as a region, said Supervisors Gibbs and Darling, not only saves money, but gives the counties more clout.

“If our COG comes together, then we have a voice,” Gibbs said. “I think you're going to see more of that.”

Sea changes

Big and small counties have less in common in these days. Rural counties concerned with economic development and secondary roads don't share big-county concerns on juvenile detention, mental health services, zoning and public health.

Counties like Black Hawk, Linn and Johnson are considering forming a large-county caucus, because of the unique set of issues they face. They still want to participate in the Iowa State Association of Counties but need something more.

“We don't necessarily feel like we are getting everything we need there,” said Rod Sullivan, Johnson County supervisor. “It's not a knock on those folks. They do a fantastic job for us, but we have somewhat different needs than most of our fellow members.”

Technology is making physical county offices less relevant. More Iowans pay property taxes and renew license plates online. The two Web sites at which Iowans can pay property taxes reported 18 percent and 11 percent increases in tax dollars collected from fiscal 2008 to 2009.

“There's more stuff done over the Internet now. Your generation, I guess you don't mind getting on a computer and paying your taxes, but my age and above, which is a lot of Iowa now, we're still a little hesitant,” Gibbs said. “The future may be districts rather than counties, but I don't think it's in the near future.”

Some structural consolidation has happened. In 1994, Woodbury County voted to do away with the Recorder's Office. Marshall County will do the same at the end of 2010, and Lee County is considering it.

According to the Secretary of State's Office, local governments have filed 17,785 cooperative agreements, or 28-Es, for sharing sand and salt, radio equipment and juvenile detention facilities. Eighteen counties share a county engineer.

No mergers soon

Lyle Brehm is county engineer for Tama and Poweshiek Counties. He oversees 35 workers in Poweshiek and 25 in Tama, and doesn't believe more consolidation would save money.

“One snow truck driver can plow, say, 20 miles of pavement. Just because he's doing two counties doesn't mean he can plow 40,” Brehm said.

He argues county residents like having local control. One county might have a tradition of spending more money to spread fresh gravel on rural roads, while another doesn't mind a few potholes on a gravel road. Consolidating counties would make it more difficult for local preferences to be honored, Brehm said, and getting too big can make it difficult to monitor workers, requiring perhaps an extra, costly layer of management.

Jeff Schott, former Marion city manager and director of the University of Iowa's Institute of Public Affairs, agreed. He said consolidation doesn't automatically bring cost savings.

“Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Things aren't as simple as some people would like them to be,” Schott said.

Adding driving time for the property owner who wants to visit the zoning office or talk to a public health official wouldn't be popular, either, Schott said.

“The county courthouse is typically the political center of local governments. That's where the political powers are,” he said.

Speaking of politics, imagine the battles over where to place the county seat of a merged county. County courthouses anchor small towns, and no one wants to give them up.

Valdean Johnson co-owns Johnson's Restaurant on the northwest side of Elkader, the county seat of Clayton. On Monday, a pile of fried chicken was steaming on the buffet as he got prepared for the lunch crowd. He said he gets a lot of business from people connected to government - sheriff's deputies, courthouse workers, supervisors.

“If you closed all those things up, whether we could survive or not, I don't know,” Johnson said.