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11 Promises Made, Promises Kept
- Georgetown University Press
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271 ! 11 " Promises Made, Promises Kept Kurt Thurmaier and Suzanne M. Leland City–county consolidations have a long history in the United States, and the representative cases reviewed in this volume span more than forty years of this history. Our objective in this chapter is to scan these representative cases for patterns of effects that lead to the conclusions that consolidations have lived up to the promises made by their proponents in the referenda campaigns that gave them birth. In particular, we review these nine pairs of cases (a total of eighteen observations in our sample) for evidence that consolidations keep promises to increase local government efficiency, increase local government effectiveness in economic development, and also fulfill any other assorted promises made during consolidation campaigns.1 In chapter 1 we presented the research design that frames this comparative case study, and we acknowledged the challenges that our contributing authors faced in obtaining the data needed to make this design work. Again, we thank our research team and credit them with a vast reserve of determination and patience in finding the data, whether deep in the storage cellars of courthouses and public libraries or buried inside archived files from censuses of governments. This has truly been a monumental undertaking, and it is no wonder that it has not been attempted before. This chapter systematically analyzes the three hypotheses presented in chapter 1, based on our research design (see figure 1.1): H1: The consolidated governments operate more efficiently than unconsolidated governments, due to selective functional service consolidations. 272 Promises Made, Promises Kept H2: Consolidated governments will have higher economic growth rates than similar nonconsolidated communities due to structural effectiveness gains. H3: The consolidated government delivered on its other promises made in the proconsolidation campaign. We consider two types of observations. First, we compare the consolidation and comparison cases within each case chapter with respect to a particular hypothesis. Second, we synthesize these results and draw conclusions for each hypothesis based on an assessment of the sample of nine sets of cases. We draw our conclusions about the hypothesis based on the combination of data. We first analyze the efficiency promise, then the economic development hypothesis, and then the other promises made by consolidation campaigns. The next section of the chapter synthesizes the findings from the three hypotheses to answer the question of whether consolidations, on balance, have lived up to their promises. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of our satisfaction with our research design, and of how researchers might pursue future studies about the efficiency and effectiveness of local governments in metropolitan areas. The Efficiency Promise in Consolidation Referenda There are now thirty-nine consolidated governments across the nation. Although a frequently discussed local government reform, city–county consolidation (where a major municipality and county have structurally merged to form a unified government) is unusual, and is even considered a revolutionary change (Rosenbaum and Kammerer 1974). Approximately 80 percent of consolidation efforts fail (Leland and Thurmaier 2006). But the discussion of consolidation is alive and well in the halls of local governments and state legislatures, especially during this time of economic crisis. Since the recession began in late 2008, reformers in states such as Texas, Indiana, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania have been considering the consolidation of cities and counties as a solution to save money. Cities and counties such as Pittsburgh/Allegheny County and Charlotte/Mecklenburg County are also revisiting the issue. [18.204.42.89] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:22 GMT) The Efficiency Promise in Consolidation Referenda 273 Our efficiency hypothesis (H1) is based on the long-standing argument by consolidation proponents that consolidation will reduce the overall cost of government. Therefore, we define efficiency in their terms. There has been considerable discussion in the urban policy literature about the debate on the new regionalism versus fragmentation. Although the regionalists ’ perspective advocates consolidation to reduce governmental fragmentation and take advantage of economies of scale, several public choice theorists argue that this approach will fail to achieve any efficiency with regard to the use of scarce resources (Tiebout 1956; Ostrom, Tiebout, and Warren 1961). Indeed, from the public choice perspective, single-unit governments are more likely to behave as monopolists and reduce the quality of services while prices (taxes) rise (Leland and Rosentraub 2007). There have been few empirical studies examining whether consolidation produces more efficient and effective local government service delivery. The majority of studies involve single case studies (e.g., Benton and Gamble 1984...