County Government
Nature of the county.
The County.—Every state in the Union is now divided into counties.[[59]] The division is made by the state legislature, but when county boundaries are once fixed they are seldom changed thereafter. In the older states the counties are often small; in the newer states they sometimes cover several hundred square miles.[[60]] Counties, like cities, are public corporations, that is to say they have the right to own property, to raise taxes, to borrow money, and to make contracts. They may sue and be sued in the courts. But counties have no inalienable rights of their own. All their powers are derived from the state. They are merely political divisions of the state, created for the more convenient administration of local affairs. In a few states the people of each county are permitted to select and establish such form of county government as they may choose, but as a rule the state legislature prescribes a uniform type of county government for all the counties within the state.
The County Officers.—The chief governmental authority of the county is the county board, the members of which are usually known as commissioners or supervisors. These members are either directly elected by the voters of the county or sent as representatives from the townships. County boards may have only three members or as many as fifteen—each state has its own regulations on this point. The board has its headquarters at the county seat, where the county courthouse is located.
County functions.
The functions of the county board may be summarized under six heads. 1. Financial. Most county boards have the right to levy county taxes and to make appropriations for expenditure. They have authority from the state legislature to borrow money on the county’s credit. This borrowing power is exercised in order to construct county roads, build bridges, or provide county buildings. 2. Highways and bridges. In many states all the main highways are designated as state or county roads. The towns and townships are responsible for the construction of minor highways only. The state roads are built by state highway commissions or some such body; the county roads are constructed and maintained by the county board. In some states these county roads are numerous; in others they are very few. Main bridges, which connect two cities, towns, or townships, are also built and maintained by the county board. 3. Public buildings. Every county requires certain public buildings, including a courthouse, a county jail, a registry of deeds, a county poorhouse, and sometimes a county hospital. These buildings are erected and managed by the county board. 4. Poor-relief and correction. The function of providing public poor-relief is to some extent performed by the state and municipal authorities but a good deal of the responsibility still rests upon the county boards. 5. Elections. In most states of the West and South the county board has charge of the local arrangements for state and national elections. It designates the polling places, appoints the election officers, and provides the ballots. The county, in most of the states, serves as the unit for the selection of senators and assemblymen in the state legislature. 6. Miscellaneous. Finally, the county boards have sundry other functions. Occasionally they grant charters of incorporation to companies. In some states they construct irrigation works and arrange for the abolition of grade crossings on railroads. They often help in the selection of jurors and have authority to grant certain licenses.
The faults of county government.
Have County Boards been Satisfactory?—The work of the county boards has not received much public attention in most of the states until the last few years. The county has been called “the jungle of American politics” because the masses of the people know so little about what is going on in the offices of the county authorities. On the whole county government has not been conspicuously bad, but it has been far from what it ought to be. American counties, as a rule, have been more honestly and more economically governed than American cities. The fundamental objection to the existing system of county government is that it places in the hands of an elective body, the members of which are usually chosen for purely political reasons, the performance of many difficult executive functions. The management of finances, construction of roads, bridges, and public buildings, the proper treatment of the poor, the sick, and the insane are all tasks which require ability, skill, and experience. Elective county supervisors cannot reasonably be expected to perform them well, and this is especially the case when the nominations and elections are dominated by professional politicians.
The County Manager Plan.—In view of the large amount of executive work, requiring skill and experience, which is imposed upon the county boards, and especially in consideration of the fact that this executive work is steadily growing, it has been proposed that the boards should confine themselves to matters of general policy, leaving to a county manager the entire work of actual administration. In a few counties this proposal has been adopted. The county manager, a trained and highly-paid official, is appointed by the county board to purchase all materials and supplies, to hire labor, to prepare contracts for the construction of public buildings, and to attend to all the details which arise in connection with the board’s work. In this way, by concentrating authority in a single hand, a great deal of waste and inefficiency is avoided. The plan is in harmony with the principle that responsibility for purely executive work, particularly when it is of a technical character, should be entrusted to men who have special qualifications for performing it (see pp. 197-198).
County courts.
The County as a Judicial Area.—In the administration of justice the county plays an important part. County courts exist in nearly all the states, and although they form an integral part of the state judiciary they have jurisdiction over such matters within the county as the laws may provide. Both the organization and the jurisdiction of the county courts differ greatly from state to state. In some states each county has its own judge; in others there is one judge for a group of counties. This judge holds sessions in one county after another. The county court usually hears appeals from the local courts and has original jurisdiction in cases where a jury is in order. The probating of wills is in most cases a function of the county court. Appeals from its decisions may usually be carried to the higher tribunals of the state.
His functions.
The Sheriff.—Every county has a peace officer known as the sheriff, usually elected by the voters of the county. He is the chief guardian of the law and the right-arm of the county court. Historically this is the oldest office in the country. It goes back to the time of William the Conqueror or earlier, when the shire-reeve was the agent of the king in keeping law and order. Sheriffs have the right to appoint deputy-sheriffs whose duty it is to help preserve the public peace, to make arrests, and to serve court papers. Sometimes the sheriff and his deputies are paid regular salaries, but more often they obtain their remuneration from fees. The sheriff is the custodian of prisoners in the county jail; he summons the jurors to the court sessions and carries out all the judgments rendered by the court.
Work of the grand jury.
The Prosecuting Attorney.—Attached to every county court there is a legal officer who is commonly known as the prosecuting attorney or county attorney, usually elected by the people.[[61]] His chief duty is to conduct prosecutions before the county court. He investigates crimes, prepares the evidence, and usually lays the case, first of all, before a body known as the grand jury. This jury, as will later be explained, is selected by lot from among the voters of the county. It does not go into the question of guilt or innocence, but merely determines whether an accused person should be placed on trial before a trial jury in a county court. In some states it is not necessary for the prosecuting attorney to lay the case before the grand jury; he may merely file a sworn declaration, called an information or complaint, stating his belief that there is sufficient ground for placing the accused person on trial. Prosecuting attorneys everywhere have a good deal of discretion in the way of discontinuing or “nol-prossing” criminal cases.[[62]]
Other County Officers.—There are various other officers connected with county government. The county assessors go about the county and assess or value property for purposes of taxation. The county treasurer receives the taxes and pays the county’s bills. The county auditors inspect the financial accounts of all county officers. The registrar of deeds or recorder keeps books in which all deeds and mortgages on land are entered.[[63]] |The coroner.| The county coroner has the duty of holding an investigation or inquest whenever a death takes place under circumstances which excite suspicion of crime. For this purpose he summons a coroner’s jury of citizens to determine the facts. They do not determine guilt or innocence, but may recommend that a suspected person be arrested and held for trial. In some states the office of coroner has been abolished and its functions given to an appointive official known as the medical examiner, who is always a physician. In many counties there is a county superintendent of schools whose duties are indicated by his title. Practically all these officers are elected, usually for a short term of years.
The selection of county employees.
Civil Service Reform in Counties.—Besides the foregoing officers there are, in the service of county government, large numbers of subordinate officials and employees, including deputy-sheriffs, attendants in the jail and poorhouse, foremen on road construction, clerks in the county offices, and so on. All of these are still chosen, in most counties, under the spoils system. Positions on the county pay roll are given almost everywhere the reward of party or personal service. The merit system of selecting subordinate officials by competitive examination has made little or no progress in the counties of the United States although there is no good reason why it should not be used there as well as in the municipal, state, and national service. The county remains the last fortress of the spoils system because the people as a whole have not been fully awakened to the importance of its work and because the political influences which control county government have heretofore been strong enough to prevent the loss of patronage which the introduction of the merit system would entail.
Relations of county and city.
The Metropolitan Counties.—Special problems of county government arise whenever a large city spreads itself over a whole county or even over a very large portion of it. The growth of great municipal centers during recent years has changed many American counties from rural into urban or metropolitan areas. Examples are to be found in New York City which includes five counties within the city limits. The city of Philadelphia includes the whole of Philadelphia county; Suffolk county is almost entirely covered by the city of Boston, and the city of Cleveland contains nine tenths of the population of Cuyahoga county. The cities are largely independent of the counties within which they are located, but the functions of city and county government run close together at many points. For example the sheriff of the county and the police commissioner or police chief of the city are both responsible for the maintenance of law and order. The result is, quite often, a duplication of work and a waste of money. It has been proposed that the city and county governments, in the case of metropolitan counties, should be substantially combined to prevent this duplication. To some extent this has been done, as in the case of St. Louis, Baltimore, Boston, and San Francisco. In other large cities various plans for entire or partial unification are under way.
Desirable changes in county organization.
The Reform of County Government.—For the improvement of county government throughout the country three important changes in present organization and methods seem to be needed. |1. A centralized executive.| In the first place some provision should be made for the better handling of executive work. As matters now stand there is no county official corresponding to the President, the governor, and the mayor in national, state, and city government respectively. Responsibility is scattered into too many hands. It ought to be centralized in a county manager or some other single administrative official. |2. A shorter ballot.| Second, the number of elective county officers should be reduced. There is no sound reason why treasurers, auditors, and superintendents of schools should be appointed in cities (as is usually the case), but elected in counties. The practice of electing so many administrative officers makes the ballot long and cumbersome; it also leads to the choice of men who have no qualifications other than popularity. What is even worse, it encourages frequent changes in the incumbents of these offices and thus interferes with the efficient management of the county’s business. |3. The merit system.| Finally, the merit system could be advantageously extended to include all subordinate county positions.