Is it time to consolidate Iowa counties?

Does Iowa need 99 counties? Len Hadley thinks not.

But good luck doing anything about it.

Hadley, retired CEO of Maytag, has been pushing for county consolidation for years, and met with The Gazette editorial board on Thursday to once again make the case.

“Iowa has too much government for the number of people that we have,” he said.

Iowa's 99 counties, Hadley said, are a relic of the days when people drove to the county seat in a horse and buggy, and needed to make it there and back before dark.

Hadley proposes that counties be consolidated so that each county seat is no more than a 45-minute drive from the borders of the county. In Hadley's scheme, that means three or four counties combined into one, with at least 50,000 people in each of 32 regions. Large counties like Linn, Polk, Scott, Johnson and Black Hawk would stay roughly the same.

The Iowa Legislature has never touched the issue and gives no indication it ever will, but Hadley hopes the recession will give the idea traction as a cost-saving measure. Some counties already share county attorneys or county engineers.

“We really should push this,” said Hadley, who lives in Cedar Rapids.

The farm work that once required one man's hard work for a day now can be done by a combine in four minutes, and farm technology is only improving, he said.

“Folks, that's why it isn't coming back,” Hadley said.

Hadley uses an example of four counties in northeast Iowa - Winneshiek, Allamakee, Fayette and Clayton. Together, the four counties have a population of more than 70,000, about the same as Dubuque County. But the payroll for their elected officials - the supervisors, auditors, treasurers, county attorneys, sheriffs and recorders - is $1 million more than the payroll for those elected offices in Dubuque County, Hadley said.

Consolidating the counties, and electing one roster of elected officials, could save each county $250,000, or roughly 3 percent of what landowners pay in property taxes each year. That's not taking into account the savings possible if all county departments were consolidated and streamlined for greater efficiency.

But county government is a way of life in Iowa and will not change soon, Linn County Supervisor James Houser said. People love their courthouses, and often, county government positions are some of the best jobs in town.

“I don't think you'd ever get the people to vote for (consolidation),” Houser said. “They're used to having their government in their geographic area, and they're used to having government services delivered by their county elected officials.”

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