Steps to Local Government Reform: A Guide to Tailoring Local Government Reforms to Fit Regional Governance Communities in Democracies

By Allyn O. Lockner

Does the performance of your local government leave something to be desired? Maybe youre not satisfied with the services your government provides, or maybe the cost for these services is far too much. If so, take heart; you can do something about it.

Steps to Local Government Reform is your step-by-step guide to undertaking reform on the local level. Public manager Allyn O. Lockner combines years of experience in the public sector to show how you, as a resident or an elected local official, can work with others to successfully implement change within your community. Lockner explains how to make numerous choices regarding the preparation for, and the study, planning, marketing, approval, implementation, and evaluation of reforms. He also shows you how to share these reform results with others.

Using various criteria, comparisons, practices, analyses, and other studies aimed at local government performance, Lockner delves into the sometimes tricky world of enacting reform. He reveals how local government works and provides a map for maneuvering around bureaucratic roadblocks. In addition, he includes a comprehensive bibliography for research, an appendix of terms commonly used in the reform process, and guides to creating reform models that are likely to work.

With this compendium, you can help resolve vital issues, improve your community, and live a better life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781462018208

Allyn O. Lockner

Allyn O. Lockner holds a PhD in economics, specializing in public finance, from the University of Colorado and subsequently studied economics and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a graduate of the Executive Development Program at the Federal Executive Institute, Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Kansas Certified Public Manager Program. Most of the author’s writings have been unpublished memoranda, monographs, and research reports for three state governors; testimonies before committees of three state legislatures; issue papers and reports for elected and appointed state officials; and research reports and public policy analyses for two appointed senior federal officials. The author’s career positions include the following: • Research analyst, Wyoming Legislative Research Committee, focusing on local property taxation and school finance, 1959–1961 • Director, Wyoming Legislative Research Council, supervising professional research of state and local issues, 1961–1963 • Financial economist, governments division, US Census Bureau, analyzing the collection of property tax facts from fifty states for the census of governments and developing a quarterly report on state tax collections, 1963–1965 • Assistant, associate, and full professor of economics, South Dakota State University, teaching macroeconomics and teaching and researching public finance, including state and local taxation, 1965–1973 • Member of two and chairperson of one South Dakota Governor’s Tax Councils to, among other things, reduce the finance of public education through the property tax by the adoption of an income tax while at South Dakota State University, 1965-1973 • Secretary of environmental protection and a member of the governor’s cabinet, State of South Dakota, including work with public water supply systems, and with air, water, and solid waste pollution control systems of cities, counties, and businesses, and with nonpoint water pollution programs of soil and water conservation districts, 1973–1979 • Chairman, South Dakota Natural Resources Subcabinet while secretary of environmental protection, 1977–1978 • Deputy regional director, Office of Surface Mining, US Department of the Interior, 1979–1981 • Director, Kansas Water Office, involving water resources planning, 1981–1982 • Management systems analyst, Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, including facilitation of group strategic planning within the department and among departments in the executive branch of Kansas state government, 1984–2001 Memberships include the Kansas Society of Certified Public Managers, American Academy of Certified Public Managers, Kansas Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations, and the League of Women Voters. The author participates in meetings of the Shawnee County Intergovernmental Cooperation Council, which is composed of local government officials in Shawnee County, Kansas. During his career, the author was also a member of the American Economic Association, National Tax Association, and American Society for Public Administration. The author’s publications include the following: • “A Proposed Mineral Tax for Colorado.” National Tax Journal (September 1962). • “The Economic Effect of a Progressive Net Profits Tax on Decision-Making by the Mining Firm.” Land Economics (November 1962). • “The Economic Effect of the Severance Tax on Decisions of the Mining Firm.” Natural Resources Journal (January 1965). • (with Han J. Kim). “Circuit Breakers on Farm-Property-Tax Overload: A Case Study.” National Tax Journal (June 1973). • “Land Use Issues in South Dakota.” Congressional Record (March 4, 1974) (paper delivered before the Conference on Environmental Issues, Sioux Falls, January 1974). • “What Are We For?” Improving College and University Teaching (Summer 1975). • “Probability Thinking about Kansas Water Resources Trends: 1980–2020.” Kansas Government Journal (December 1982). Users of the Guide wanting to contact the author or his successor may obtain the address from iUniverse.

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Copyright © 2013 Allyn O. Lockner

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-1818-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1819-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1820-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909764

iUniverse rev. date: 3/26/2013

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

STEP ONE

Guide Users Prepare to Make Local Government Reform Choices in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 1-1   Local Governments Perform Functions for Guide Users and Other Stakeholders

Exhibit 1-2 Context of Basic Local Government Reform Politics for Guide Users

Exhibit 1-3 Profile of Guide User’s Local Government Reform Practices Preparation

STEP TWO

Civic-Minded Local Government Stakeholders Study the Regional Governance Community, Local Governments, and Fact-Based Dissatisfactions with Governments

Exhibit 2-1 Assets of the _________________________ Regional Governance Community and Its Local Governments

Exhibit 2-2 Stakeholder Fact-Based Dissatisfactions with Local Government Functions in the _________________________ Regional Governance Community

STEP THREE

Local Government Stakeholders Build a Regional Community Coalition for Achieving Local Government Reform in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 3-1 Management of the Trade-Off between Inclusion and Cohesion in the Regional Community Coalition

Exhibit 3-2 Communication Techniques

Exhibit 3-3 What Is Most Likely to Work and Be Successful for Achieving Local Government Reform

STEP FOUR

Regional Community Coalition Chooses the Vital Issues Confronting Stakeholders in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 4-1 SWOT Analysis to Identify Additional Fact-Based Stakeholder Dissatisfactions with Local Government Functions in the ____________________________ Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 4-2 Reduction of Several Fact-Based Stakeholder Dissatisfactions to No More Than Seven Vital Regional Governance Community Issues

Exhibit 4-3 Vital Issues in the __________________________ Regional Governance Community and the Local Governments with the Statutory Responsibility and Authority for Resolving the Issues

Exhibit 4-4 Identification of Major Existing and Expected Obstacles to Resolving Vital Issues by Local Government Reform in the ______________________________ Regional Governance Community

STEP FIVE

Regional Community Coalition Identifies Statutory Authorizations, Financial Incentives, and Technical Assistance for Reform in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 5-1 Potential Reforms Applicable to Like, Unlike, and Like/Unlike Local Governments

Exhibit 5-2 Statutory Authorizations, Court Interpretations, and Legal Opinions Regarding the Types of Functional and Structural Reforms of Local Governments in the State or Nation of ____________________________________

Exhibit 5-3 Sources of Financial Incentives and Technical Assistance for Local Government Reform in the State or Nation of ____________________________

STEP SIX

Regional Community Coalition Initiates Establishment and Influences Composition of the Local Government Reform Commission

Exhibit 6-1 Statutory Requirements Pertaining to the Establishment and Characteristics of the Local Government Reform Commission in the State or Nation of __________________________

Exhibit 6-2 Profiles of Members of the Local Government Reform Commission

STEP SEVEN

Local Government Reform Commission Prepares to Study Local Governments and Local Government Reform in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 7-1 Statutory Requirements and Operating Procedures of the Local Government Reform Commission in the _____________________________ Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 7-2 Facts Collected about Local Governments Likely to Participate in Resolving Vital Issues in the ____________________________________ Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 7-3 Communication Methods and Facts Filing, Storage, and Retrieval Systems

Exhibit 7-4 Public Meeting Procedures

Exhibit 7-5 Performance Plan

STEP EIGHT

Local Government Reform Commission Conducts Early Public Meetings on Local Governments and Local Government Reform Choices in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 8-1 Questions Asked by Commission at Early Public Meetings

STEP NINE

Local Government Reform Commission Studies the Contexts of Major Forces Propelling and Repelling Reform in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 9-1 Identification of Major Forces Propelling and Repelling Local Government Reform

Exhibit 9-2 Profile of the Major Forces Propelling and Repelling Local Government Reform in the _________________________________ Regional Governance Community

STEP TEN

Local Government Reform Commission Studies the Local Governments That Are Potential Candidates for Reform and Tentatively Chooses the Functions That Need Reform in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 10-1 Chosen Vital Regional Governance Community Issues and Stakeholder and Support Functions for Resolving the Issues by __________________________________

Exhibit 10-2 Interlocal Government Duplications and Gaps in Stakeholder and Support Functions among ___________________________________

Exhibit 10-3 Analysis of the Stakeholder and Support Functions of a Chosen Local Government: _________________________________________

Exhibit 10-4 Analysis of the Governance Functions of a Chosen Local Government: __________________________________

Exhibit 10-5 Analysis of the Dynamics and Interdependencies of Stakeholder, Support, and Governance Functions of a Chosen Local Government: ______________________________

Exhibit 10-6 Strengths and Weaknesses of Local Government Democracy and Capacity

STEP ELEVEN

Local Government Reform Commission Studies the Major Propelling and Repelling Forces of Special Situations and Definitely Chooses the Functions That Need Reform in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 11-1 Major Propelling and Repelling Forces of Special Situations on the Reform of Functions Tentatively Chosen to Need Reform in ________________________________

STEP TWELVE

Local Government Reform Commission Studies the Characteristics, Advantages, and Disadvantages and the Measurable, Nonmeasurable, and Transition Costs of Local Government Functional and Structural Reforms in the Regional Governance Community and Tentatively Chooses a Reform

Exhibit 12-1 Choosing Functional or Structural Reforms for Possible Inclusion in the Local Government Reform Plan

Exhibit 12-2 Estimation of the Measurable Costs of a Functional or Structural Reform or No Reform

Exhibit 12-3 Explanation of the Nonmeasurable Costs of a Functional or Structural Reform or No Reform

Exhibit 12-4 Estimation of the Measurable and Explanation of the Nonmeasurable Transition Costs of a Functional or Structural Reform

STEP THIRTEEN

Local Government Reform Commission Reaches Consensus on Rewards-Risks Trade-Offs, Local Government Reform, and the Preliminary Local Government Reform Plan for the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 13-1 Estimation of the Rewards-Risks Trade-Offs of a Tentatively Chosen Reform and No Reform

Exhibit 13-2 Estimation of the Political Power of Propelling and Repelling Forces on a Local Government Reform

Exhibit 13-3 Possible Provisions of a Local Government Reform Plan Based on a Joint Powers Agreement

Exhibit 13-4 Possible Provisions of a Local Government Reform Plan Based on a Regional Community Council Agreement

Exhibit 13-5 Possible Stakeholder and Support Functions Provisions of a Local Government Reform Plan Based on a Two-Tier Government

Exhibit 13-6 Possible Governance Functions Provisions of a Local Government Reform Plan Based on a Two-Tier Government

STEP FOURTEEN

Local Government Reform Commission Requests Comments and Questions on the Preliminary Reform Plan from the Regional Community Coalition and Other Stakeholders

Exhibit 14-1 Methods of Distributing the Preliminary Plan and Obtaining and Answering Comments and Questions

STEP FIFTEEN

Local Government Reform Commission Reviews Comments and Questions about the Preliminary Reform Plan and Chooses Its Responses

STEP SIXTEEN

Local Government Reform Commission Adopts the Final Local Government Reform Plan, Ballot Measure, and Election Date

STEP SEVENTEEN

Commission, Coalition, Marketers, and Other Stakeholders Advocate the Final Local Government Reform Plan for the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 17-1 Methods of Marketing the Final Local Government Reform Plan

STEP EIGHTEEN

Majority of Voting Stakeholders Approves Reform Plan Implementation in the Regional Governance Community; If Disapproved, Coalition Chooses What to Do Next

STEP NINETEEN

Designated Elected Local Governing Bodies Utilize Transition Teams, Transition Tasks, Action Plans, and Performance Reports to Implement the Voter-Approved Reform Plan in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 19-1 Regional Community Council Identification and Choice of Transition Tasks________________________________________________________________

Exhibit 19-2 Transition Task Action Plan for a Functional Reform or a Combined Functional-Structural Reform _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________

Exhibit 19-3 Vital Issue Resolution Performance Report for a Functional Reform or a Combined Functional-Structural Reform____________________________________________________________

Exhibit 19-4 Second-Tier Governing Body Identification and Choice of Transition Tasks____________________________________________________________

Exhibit 19-5 Unintended Performance Outcomes Report for a Functional Reform or a Combined Functional-Structural Reform_______________________________________________________

STEP TWENTY

Guide Users Record, Share, and Use Fact-Based Lessons Learned from Using the Guide to Study and Reform Local Governments in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit 20-1 Guide Users Record Fact-Based Lessons Learned from Using the Guide

Exhibit 20-2 Performance Report on a Local Government Reform’s Resolution of a Vital Issue

Conclusion

Exhibit C-1 Local Government Reform Process in the Regional Governance Community

Exhibit C-2 Choices and Actions within the Local Government Reform Process in the Regional Governance Community of a Democracy

Postscript

Appendices

Appendix A Glossary

Appendix B Local Government Reform Process: Moving from Tentative Ideas to Principles and to Models

Appendix C Principled Negotiation

Appendix D Certified Mediation

Appendix E Dynamics and Interdependencies of Local Governments and Their Reform in the Regional Governance Community

Appendix F Selected Bibliography

Guide User Notes

Endnotes

Dedicated to people who want to study and reform their local governments in the United States and other democracies throughout the world

Preface

My personal experiences, professional observations, research, and thoughts influenced my ideas about the study and reform of local government. They also shaped the design and contents of the Guide.

My interest in local government reform began after my retirement when I chaired and undertook research for the Annexation Study Committee of the League of Women Voters of Topeka and Shawnee County, Kansas. In 2005, the League adopted its Public Policy Position on Annexation in Topeka and Shawnee County. In the same year, I volunteered to conduct research and provide information to the Consolidation Commission of Topeka, Kansas, and Shawnee County, Kansas. The commission studied the merger of the governments of the City of Topeka and Shawnee County and prepared a plan for consolidating the two governments.

The commission submitted its Final Plan for Consolidation of the Governments of Topeka, Kansas, and Shawnee County, Kansas to voters. Voters disapproved the plan on December 15, 2005. The generally accepted reason for disapproval was the state’s statutory dual majority prerequisite. It required a majority of voters inside the jurisdictional boundaries of the City of Topeka and a majority outside the boundaries in Shawnee County to approve the plan. Consolidation might have been successful had there been more consensus, facts, and/or analysis to help the commission to tailor and prepare a plan that satisfied a statutory majority of voters inside and outside the city boundaries and to help marketers provide more timely and useful facts about the plan to voters.

Since December 2005, elected officials from the City of Topeka and Shawnee County have identified the cost reductions that a merger of two functions would achieve: information technology and parks and recreation. However, officials disagreed on which government would perform these functions. Officials continued to discuss alternative reforms involving these governments. They approved consolidation of parks and recreation, which was implemented on January 1, 2012.

Interest in local government reform in Kansas spread beyond the City of Topeka and Shawnee County. I wrote and delivered testimony on consolidation bills before the Kansas legislature. Testimony supported bills omitting the state dual majority prerequisite, opposed bills containing the prerequisite, and supported bills allowing local officials the option of choosing the prerequisite. Testimony was also delivered on bills that, if enacted, would update state statutes dealing with consolidation and consolidation alternatives, including a general provision that authorizes city-county government consolidation.

Residents in Kansas regional communities did not have a document that would assist them to investigate and undertake city-county and school district consolidation and consolidation alternatives. In an attempt to provide assistance, I wrote A Guide to Choosing Consolidations and Alternatives in Kansas: Adapting Local Governments to Local Regional Communities, second edition, dated July 1, 2008.

Impacts of Tendencies and Themes

In addition to the above experiences and observations, Appendix F: Selected Bibliography contains sources that impact the contents of the Guide. An overview of the sources suggests common tendencies and themes.

The first set of tendencies and themes affects reforms in the United States and other democracies throughout the world. They surround the study and reform of local governments and include but are not limited to the following tendencies and themes:

• Fiscal stress of local governments is a common reason for reforms.

• Stress is due to preferences for more service benefits and lower service costs.

• Resident preferences for more and varied benefits of services stimulate reforms.

• Resident preferences for lower costs of services stimulate reforms.

• Some nations are moving toward more decentralization of political power.

• Interested individuals and groups are grappling with how to achieve reforms.

• Natural and social contexts of reforms vary within localities, states, and nations.

• Expanding or shrinking populations in communities and regions stimulate reforms.

• Transitions from autocracies to democracies incite reforms for voting power to residents.

• Heterogeneity of resident preferences makes reforms complex, contentious, and difficult.

• Increased efficiency is a common reason for undertaking reforms.

• Economic development and competitiveness is a common reason for reforms.

• Reforms are initiated from above by officials or from below by residents.

• Statutory authorizations for reforms vary among state and federal governments.

• Advancing information and communication technologies stimulate reforms.

• Increasing boundary-crossing spillovers increases pressure for reforms.

• Increasing free-rider problems increases pressure for reforms.

• Increasing interdependencies of local governments stimulates reforms.

• Comprehensiveness of study and reform varies widely among residents and elected officials.

• Tension often exists between local government capacity and democracy.

A second set of tendencies and themes pertains to studies of local governments and their reforms within the above surroundings. These studies range from academic articles and books written by university researchers to policy papers and reports prepared by local, state, or federal governments. The studies indicate but are not limited to the following tendencies and themes:

• Studies focus on the production or delivery of local government services.

• Studies focus on increasing the efficiency and/or effectiveness of service production.

• Many studies are single or comparative case studies of reforms.

• Many studies address reforms in urban or exurban (rural) communities or regions.

• Studies usually address reforms of county, city, and/or township governments jointly.

• Studies usually address reforms of school district governments separately.

• Studies seldom address reforms of special district governments.

• Studies are shifting from narrower local reforms to wider regional reforms.

• Studies are expanding reforms to networks involving nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

• Studies often link reforms to economic development and competitiveness.

• Recent studies link reforms to making communities places where people want to live.

• Studies are usually about specific and different types of reforms.

• Studies acknowledge the free-rider problem of voluntary reforms.

• Studies address boundary spillovers explicitly or implicitly.

• Studies encounter diverse natural and social contexts of reform.

• Studies are either about the reform of services or reform of structures.

• Studies cover reforms involving privatization and outsourcing services.

• More studies are about service cooperation; fewer are about government consolidation.

• More studies utilize census and sample survey data.

• Most studies are undertaken from the perspective of a specific branch of learning.

These tendencies and themes seem to be facts that indicate what has occurred between 2000 and early 2012. They will continue, expand, decline, or terminate, and entirely new ones will likely appear in the future.

The tendencies and themes, together with experiences and observations, are significant contexts of the Guide. These contexts impact the Guide, and it builds partly on the contexts. It also introduces other contexts and ideas to obtain a local government reform process that aims to complement the tendencies and themes by adding to them, where and when appropriate. The process aims to achieve reforms that enable more residents to live better lives.

Local Government Stakeholders, Questions, and Trends

All residents of local governments hold stakes in their local governments. The stakes are the shared benefits (well-being, good effects, and so forth) they receive from and the shared costs (taxes, user charges, and so forth) they pay for the functions (for example, police protection and water supply) of their local governments. As stakeholders, they also have other common investments, claims, concerns, involvements, and interests in local governments (for example, voting for candidates for local offices and participating in meetings of local governing bodies). Residents are stakeholders regardless of what they do, where they do it, or how they do it within the jurisdictional boundaries of their local governments. They may attend school, maintain families, or work jobs, be unemployed, or enjoy retirement. Nonresidents also are stakeholders when they are within the jurisdictional boundaries of a local government. As will be discussed later, stakeholders not only hold stakes in their local governments, but also may hold them in nearby local governments.

Residents may not be fully aware of the stakes they hold in local governments. As satisfied or disinterested stakeholders, they sometimes take their local governments for granted. At other times, stakeholders are dissatisfied with their governments and no longer take them for granted. When stakeholders are dissatisfied, they are unable to live better lives. When dissatisfied, stakeholders, particularly voting stakeholders, typically ask questions:

• Why doesn’t the city reduce violent crime in our neighborhoods?

• Why doesn’t the county fill the potholes in our streets and roads?

• Why doesn’t the school district increase the learning of our children?

• Why doesn’t the fire protection district extinguish fires more quickly?

• Why doesn’t the city reduce our traffic congestion?

• Why doesn’t the county attract more well-paying private jobs for us?

• Why doesn’t the city deliver us more recreational and cultural activities?

• Why doesn’t the school district lower its costs and our taxes?

• Why doesn’t the county help employers to compete in international markets?

• Why doesn’t more collaboration exist among our local governments?

Stakeholders realize that their living better depends significantly on obtaining answers to these and other questions. In brief, when stakeholders believe they are unable to live better lives, they ask, Why don’t local governments do what we want them to do? Reviewing local government trends—that is, movements of local governments toward something or in a particular direction—can partly explain the answer. Trends affect many local governments and whether or not they satisfy stakeholder preferences. These trends sometimes lead to response impasse of governments to satisfy stakeholders. Typing combinations of key words, such as city, county, school district, fiscal, taxes, revenues, stress, and so forth, in the Internet search box on a personal computer identifies trends. At least three major trends exist. Guide users are asked to review them and ascertain whether any exist in their local governments:

1. Intensifying financial pressures means the status quo cannot be sustained indefinitely. A combination of two or more factors explains the current and future financial crisis confronting many local governments in the United States and other democracies.

a. Stakeholders demand local governments improve the quantity, quality, variety, location, timeliness, or other characteristics of existing functions (services, goods, and so forth) and/or produce entirely new functions, thereby placing increased stress on existing tax and other revenue sources.

b. Elected local officials make policy decisions to increase the quantity, quality, location, variety, and/or timeliness of existing functions or add new functions, thereby adding to their financial issues.

c. Stakeholders push for lower local property, sales, and income taxes so they have more monies to expend on goods and services in the private sector or save for their children’s education or their retirement, thereby placing increased stress on local government functions.

d. Local governments rely on property, sales, and/or income taxes for most of their general fund revenues, but the growth in the tax bases has not kept pace with the growth of function costs, thereby causing some governments to raise property, sales, and/or income tax rates and/or rely more on user charges and fees.

e. During economic recessions, property values, sales, and/or incomes decline, and local governments increase property tax, sales tax, and/or income tax rates, cut local government functions, or use a combination of increases and cuts.

f. Elected local officials are reluctant to set their tax rates and user charges at realistic and sustainable levels to cover the full cost of performing existing and new local functions, thereby adding to the financial pressures.

g. Federal and state governments and professional groups raise the standards at which local government functions must be performed, thereby increasing the cost of performing the functions.

h. Local governments agree to power decentralization and to perform functions that federal or state governments previously performed at agreed funding levels, but funding is subsequently reduced or terminated, thereby forcing the local governments to pay for the functions, perform them inadequately, or suspend them.

i. State and federal governments shift responsibility and authority for performing new functions to local governments with inadequate or no additional funding, thereby increasing the function costs financed from local revenue sources.

A combination of these factors creates financial pressures that make it difficult for local governments to exert control over their functions and the tax revenues to support them now and in the future. These pressures have implications for the stakeholders who receive the benefits from and who pay the costs of the functions.

2. Federal and state legislative changes over the past several decades have expanded the role of local governments and added to the complexity of their relations with one another and the state and federal governments. The changes have blurred the roles of local, state, and federal governments and have added to the complexity, contentiousness, disorganization, and/or difficulty of planning, funding, and implementing local government policies and programs. In attempts to clarify roles, state and/or federal governments have established advisory councils, commissions, and committees on intergovernmental relations, legislative committees, offices of intergovernmental affairs, and/or special task forces. They collect facts, conduct research, and/or advise local, state, and federal elected officials on state-local and federal-local intergovernmental relations. The role of local governments continues to be problematic.

3. Good government organizations, taxpayer organizations, and organizations representing stakeholders using functions are dissatisfied with the effectiveness (performing the right functions) and efficiency (performing the functions right) of local governments. Both effectiveness and efficiency are mentioned frequently in oral testimony and written comments about government performance when lobbyists testify before legislative bodies of local governments.

The combination of the three local government trends intensifies the scarcity of financial revenues obtained from stakeholders to pay for the functions that stakeholders want. The increasing mismatch adversely affects the performance of local governments in the United States and other democracies throughout the world. Alleviating or correcting the trends is often an objective of local government reform, namely improving the functions among local governments and/or the overall structure of local government.

Local Government Reform Participants and Interests

The trends have attracted the attention of numerous and diverse local government reform participants and interests. Appendix F: Selected Bibliography contains sources that various participants and interests prepared.

Elected city, county, school district, township, and special district officials are responsible for the ongoing operations of their governments. They are confronted with improving local governments. Officials remove faults and defects and introduce better procedures, thereby strengthening local government performance and democracy. Some officials have undertaken functional and structural reforms involving two or more local governments.

Many local officials are members of state associations of city, county, school district, township, and special district governments. They discuss trends and their effects on local governments and undertake actions necessary to respond to negative trends.

The trends have drawn the attention of other elected officials. They include state, provincial, territorial, or federal officials, such as legislative bodies that enact local government reform statutes that require or authorize reforms and judicial bodies that interpret statutes.

The trends have also attracted the interest of other groups, such as university graduate faculties and students. Many universities have teaching, research, and extension programs dealing with local government and public administration, and many researchers are located in public policy institutes and schools that deal with issues confronting local governments.

National local government organizations monitor trends and seek to advocate for local governments to counteract negative trends on local governments. They include the National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, United States Conference of Mayors, National School Boards Association, National Association of Regional Councils, and their counterparts in other democracies throughout the world.

National organizations representing state governments have concerns about the trends and undertake or sponsor research aimed at alleviating negative trends. They include the Council of State Governments, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Governors Association, National Center for State Courts, National Association of Attorneys General, and their counterparts in other democracies.

International organizations work with local governments and monitor and/or influence the trends. They include the International City/County Management Association, US Agency for International Development, United Nations Development Programme, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and other organizations with responsibility and authority for strengthening local governments to perform their roles in achieving economic development and growth and supporting the advancement of local democracy in developing countries.

Trends are contexts for the Guide. Users are mindful of these trends as they employ the Guide during their study and reform of local governments.

Acknowledgments

A few people significantly influenced my life, career, and my writing Steps to Local Government Reform: A Guide to Tailoring Local Government Reforms to Fit Regional Governance Communities in Democracies. My parents, Frank and Agnes Lockner, were anxious about my health and made many sacrifices during my long hospitalization and physical rehabilitation. My physician, Dr. B.T. Lenz, diagnosed my poliomyelitis virus and saw the need for physical therapy. My physical therapist, Helen Buchanan, rehabilitated me physically and insisted that I obtain a college education. Frank Smith, a business and economics professor at Huron College, urged me to obtain a master’s degree in economics. Dr. Robert Patterson, the dean of the School of Business at University of South Dakota, urged me to become a certified public accountant or obtain a PhD in economics. My wife, Barbara J. McCandless, encouraged me, and she was patient with me during the years of researching, planning, and writing the Guide.

I thank the staffs at the following libraries for their assistance during my research and writing of the Guide: Mabee Library and Law Library at Washburn University, Kansas State Library, and Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. They were particularly helpful in obtaining books, journal articles, and other publications through interlibrary loan.

I wrote the Guide manuscript, but it requires a team to convert it into a book. Several people at iUniverse helped me. Jamie M. was my most recent intake coordinator. Krista Hill, editorial consultant, provided valuable advice and encouragement. Allison H., publishing services associate, steered the text through designing, proofreading, and indexing processes. Brian Hallbauer, marketing consultant, supplied and reviewed marketing information. I thank them for their assistance.

Any remaining errors in the Guide are my responsibility. I or my successor and iUniverse will correct them as soon as possible.

About the Author

Allyn O. Lockner holds a PhD in economics, specializing in public finance, from the University of Colorado and subsequently studied economics and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a graduate of the Executive Development Program at the Federal Executive Institute, Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Kansas Certified Public Manager Program.

Most of the author’s writings have been unpublished memoranda, monographs, and research reports for three state governors; testimonies before committees of three state legislatures; issue papers and reports for elected and appointed state officials; and research reports and public policy analyses for two appointed senior federal officials.

The author’s career positions include the following:

• Research analyst, Wyoming Legislative Research Committee, focusing on local property taxation and school finance, 1959–1961

• Director, Wyoming Legislative Research Council, supervising professional research of state and local issues, 1961–1963

• Financial economist, governments division, US Census Bureau, analyzing the collection of property tax facts from fifty states for the census of governments and developing a quarterly report on state tax collections, 1963–1965

• Assistant, associate, and full professor of economics, South Dakota State University, teaching macroeconomics and teaching and researching public finance, including state and local taxation, 1965–1973

• Member of two and chairperson of one South Dakota Governor’s Tax Councils to, among other things, reduce the finance of public education through the property tax by the adoption of an income tax while at South Dakota State University, 1965-1973

• Secretary of environmental protection and a member of the governor’s cabinet, State of South Dakota, including work with public water supply systems, and with air, water, and solid waste pollution control systems of cities, counties, and businesses, and with nonpoint water pollution programs of soil and water conservation districts, 1973–1979

• Chairman, South Dakota Natural Resources Subcabinet while secretary of environmental protection, 1977–1978

• Deputy regional director, Office of Surface Mining, US Department of the Interior, 1979–1981

• Director, Kansas Water Office, involving water resources planning, 1981–1982

• Management systems analyst, Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, including facilitation of group strategic planning within the department and among departments in the executive branch of Kansas state government, 1984–2001

Memberships include the Kansas Society of Certified Public Managers, American Academy of Certified Public Managers, Kansas Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations, and the League of Women Voters. The author participates in meetings of the Shawnee County Intergovernmental Cooperation Council, which is composed of local government officials in Shawnee County, Kansas. During his career, the author was also a member of the American Economic Association, National Tax Association, and American Society for Public Administration.

The author’s publications include the following:

• A Proposed Mineral Tax for Colorado. National Tax Journal (September 1962).

• The Economic Effect of a Progressive Net Profits Tax on Decision-Making by the Mining Firm. Land Economics (November 1962).

• The Economic Effect of the Severance Tax on Decisions of the Mining Firm. Natural Resources Journal (January 1965).

• (with Han J. Kim). Circuit Breakers on Farm-Property-Tax Overload: A Case Study. National Tax Journal (June 1973).

• Land Use Issues in South Dakota. Congressional Record (March 4, 1974) (paper delivered before the Conference on Environmental Issues, Sioux Falls, January 1974).

• What Are We For? Improving College and University Teaching (Summer 1975).

• Probability Thinking about Kansas Water Resources Trends: 1980–2020. Kansas Government Journal (December 1982).

Users of the Guide wanting to contact the author or his successor may obtain the address from iUniverse.

Introduction

Generally, the reform of local government involves improving local governments by correcting their drawbacks and weaknesses, removing their inconsistencies and contradictions, and developing and implementing more effective and/or efficient functions and structures. Specifically, the Guide addresses particular reforms involving two or more local governments or local governments and NGOs. They are discussed in more detail later.

Guide users precede their study and reform of local governments with a review of the need for reform and reform guidance, along with the scope, goals, and use of the Guide. This information prepares users to start their study and reform in step one.

Need for Local Government Reform

Although stakeholders participate only in study and reform of their own local governments, nevertheless, they may be interested in knowing about the need for reform elsewhere. They are not alone when confronting the need for reform and undertaking the study and reform of their local governments.

A reform need is an essential or requirement that must be fulfilled in order for local government to perform functions (services, goods, facilities, and so forth) that satisfy the preferences of stakeholders for the benefits (well-being, good effects, and so forth) they receive from and the costs (taxes, user charges, and so forth) they pay for functions of local governments. If this need is not fulfilled, then stakeholders are unable to live better lives.

Appendix F: Selected Bibliography includes several sources that have addressed local government reform in recent years. While the bibliography is not complete, it does contain enough sources to establish the need for local government reform.

Using various criteria, comparisons, practices, and analyses, studies aimed at local government performance indicate the need for local government reform. Reform comparisons are made for Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, United States, and Canada.¹ Reform practices are analyzed for Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and Spain.² Practices and issues associated with decentralization and its impacts on democracy and local governments are examined in countries throughout the world.³

Social scientists, policy analysts, and others have also expressed the need for reform. Summaries of some observations are as follows:

• There is a clear need for reform. Numerous local government problems demand reforms.⁴

• A critical need for regional governance exists in the United States. No agreement exists on the approach to reform regional governance.⁵

• After investigating privatization, local government reformers are exploring alternatives. Empirical analysis shows the following: dissatisfactions with fiscal stress, efficiency, and management of political and citizen interests drive the reform process more than ideology. A more comprehensive framework is needed that gives attention to a wider array of alternatives for institutional reform.⁶

• Achieving regional governance excellence needs to begin decisively.⁷

• New governance structures need to be created and fostered between American legacy cities and other local governments in their metropolitan regions.⁸

• The search for effective local and regional governance is one of the many challenges facing rural America.⁹

Local government reform activities aim to satisfy the need for reform in developed, developing, and aspiring democracies. Examples show various activities at different stages. In the United States, activities occur in Ohio,¹⁰ Wisconsin,¹¹ Indiana,¹² Maine,¹³,¹⁴ and New York.¹⁵ In Australia, they take place in the State of Western Australia.¹⁶ In Canada, they happen in the Province of New Brunswick.¹⁷ Reform activities occur in France.¹⁸ Various reform actions transpire in Nigeria,¹⁹ South Africa,²⁰ India,²¹ Indonesia,²² and Guyana.²³ Outside democracies, reforms are being considered in China²⁴ and Ukraine.²⁵

Considerable piecemeal, incremental, and localized changes have altered local government functions and structures in the United States. A common practice is for local governments, in varying degrees, to consult, coordinate, cooperate, and/or collaborate in performing specific functions, but this practice is apparently inadequate or underused because the need for reform continues to exist. The local government structure seems to be relatively stable, as infrequent city-county consolidation indicates. The most significant exception appears to be small cities. Creating new or expanding small cities, rather than via annexation, structural consolidation, or creation of overarching metropolitan structures accommodates the spreading of urban populations. County consolidations are rare. Historically, several school district consolidations have occurred, more are considered, and few have been achieved recently. As state-authorized local government reform commissions in the United States indicate, state governments occasionally consider a reexamination of local governments and division of functions among them, but no state has completed a major reform of local governments.

City-county consolidations are particularly difficult to achieve in the United States. Between 1805 and 2008, forty proposed city-county consolidations passed, and one hundred and twenty-seven failed. One consolidation was overturned. No pass or fail information was reported for one consolidation.²⁶

The consolidation of local governments deals with merging these governments into more rational units, thereby improving their performance of functions and resolution of issues. This idea is countered by the notion that a variety of different and multiple local governments with dissimilar issues, functions, structures, taxes, and so forth offers people a variety from which they can choose to reside.

Decentralization, another factor that may add to the need for local government formation and reform,²⁷ transfers the responsibility and authority for performing government functions from the central government to state or local governments and/or NGOs. One type of decentralization is the transfer of functions from the central and/or state governments to local governments. Decentralization can be involved in facilitating development and democratic governance.²⁸ To achieve successful decentralization, functions require study to ascertain whether they have the characteristics that allow their successful transfer to local governments. Also, these governments need to build their capacity to perform the transferred functions effectively, efficiently, and in a sustainable manner. Building capacity likely requires local government formation and reform.

An additional factor needs consideration because it often makes it difficult to tailor major local government reforms. A reason for the increasing need for local government reform is that achieving significant reform is often a wicked problem because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize and arrange. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to achieve reform to resolve specific vital issues may reveal or create other issues. Planning, approving, and implementing a reform is a social process and requires social coherence that is a common or shared understanding of the need for and commitment to the reform. Dealing successfully with the wickedness of achieving reform is also a factor in obtaining proven and uniform local government reform models that would provide direction and assistance for future local government reforms.²⁹

In summary, current reform need and activities in many democracies and observations of social science researchers, policy analysts, and government practitioners indicate the need for local government reform throughout the world. The nature, scope, and context of needs vary among countries and within states, provinces, and territories. Most important, as discussed later, they vary among groups of local governments within countries, states, and so forth. In turn, this affects the nature, scope, and context of reform. This suggests that, if the reform is to resolve or mitigate the need, its nature and scope must be tailored to fit the specific contexts surrounding the need.

Not only recent evidence indicates the need for reform. The future suggests the need will grow. While the future is uncertain, more stakeholders, as they strive to live better lives, are likely to change their preferences for the benefits they want to receive from local government functions and/or the costs they want to pay for the functions. Satisfying these preferences is likely to vary over time and require local governments to increase and improve their functions and/or structures for performing the functions.

New democracies in economically developing nations are likely throughout the world as people seek and achieve more self-determination of the way they want to be governed and to govern. Governing is a new experience for people in these democracies. They express their preferences for the first time by choosing the benefits they want to receive from and the costs they want to pay for the functions of local governments. People begin to become local government stakeholders when they choose their local governments and their functions and structures as they work collectively to live better lives.

Population growth and shrinkage are likely to continue in existing and new democracies. These contrasting trends occur as people move among governments and democracies and from autocracies to democracies. People are likely to continue and increase travel among the urban, suburban, and exurban (rural) areas of local government jurisdictions. Populations of some local governments will be denser and extend over a larger area, while the populations of other local governments will be sparser and extend over a smaller or larger area. Still other local governments will have different experiences. Whatever the specific trends and shifts, they are also likely to require local governments to change their functions and structure in order to satisfy the changing populations.

In all democracies, people, as stakeholders, are likely to express their satisfactions and dissatisfactions with the benefits they receive from functions and/or the costs they pay for them. Sometimes, stakeholders are not residents of local governments, but the functions of these governments affect these stakeholders in positive or negative ways. When dissatisfied preferences cross the jurisdictional boundaries of local governments, they become vital community issues for two or more governments. When governments do not satisfy preferences and resolve issues, they are likely to face a growing need for local government reform.

In summary, the need for local government reform exists, and it is likely to continue to grow in the future. Significant reform to satisfy significant stakeholder preferences and to resolve vital issues is usually achieved slowly and falls behind the need. The need grows. Reform takes time to catch up to the need. As additional dissatisfactions and issues appear, the reforms lag, and needs grow more. When stakeholders use a process to start, steer, and complete successful local government reforms, they are better able to reduce and perhaps stop the growing lag.

To obtain current facts about reform activities now and in the future, stakeholders may check on the status of reform in the United States and other democracies by using a personal computer to access newspaper articles and editorials, speeches, and other documents on the Internet. They can use a computer at a public or university library to access a variety of legal, economics, political science, public administration, education, and social science information from academic and professional articles and books. Stakeholders can search for such terms as local government reform, functional reform, structural reform, interlocal cooperation, interlocal collaboration, and interlocal consolidation. Also, stakeholders can search for phrases, such as county government reorganization, school district reorganization, special district formation, city-county consolidation, regional council, and/or regional governance.

A recent review of the numerous hits indicates that a variety of local governments and other organizations and groups are identifying reform challenges and studying, discussing, investigating, or attempting reform. A few are usually achieving relatively modest reform. Some state or federal governments are investigating and/or legislating reform. See Appendix F: Selected Bibliography.

Need for Reform Guidance

The need for local government reform strongly suggests the need for guidance to aid stakeholders in achieving local government reforms that satisfy the need. For example, the guidance may be books, handbooks, manuals, and/or other resources that guide stakeholders as they go through the process of studying and reforming their local governments. Stakeholders would use the guides to make choices such as why, what, and how to reform. The guides would also provide direction and assistance in developing local government reform models that are standards, benchmarks, or best reform practices. Models are copied, followed, or imitated because of their excellence, worth, effectiveness, efficiency, and helpfulness in reforming local governments.

Many writings address local government reforms. Appendix F: Selected Bibliography contains several articles, papers, books, and other sources discussing reforms. To be sure, these sources are valuable and should continue to add to the body of reform knowledge. Some contain elements that may be components of local government reform guidance and models. This topic is discussed briefly in the introductory paragraphs of Appendix F. However, a review of these sources indicates no generally accepted consensus about local government reforms. Some sources are guides about one or two types of reform.³⁰ Others are also guides about a few types of reforms.³¹ Others are reform guides in specific states.³² These guides were not intended to be useful to stakeholders faced with studying and reforming local governments in complex and diverse contexts. For example, such guides, if they existed, would be useful to stakeholders wanting to study their local governments, their complex and diverse contexts, and the alternative types of reform. The guides would better enable stakeholders to choose reforms that fit the contexts and satisfy their preferences.

Useful guides would be processes to obtain reform models. Such models would have the following characteristics in the United States and other democracies:

• Uniform statutory specifications for authorizing successful local government reforms previously enacted by local, state, or federal legislative bodies would be adopted with confidence and with few revisions by other local, state, or federal legislative bodies who want to enact legislation authorizing reforms.

• Standards of successful local government reforms previously adopted by elected officials or voters and implemented by local governments that measure reform performance would be adopted with confidence and with few revisions by other elected officials and voting stakeholders who want to reform their local governments.

• Successful processes previously adopted by stakeholders and elected officials for studying local governments and preparing, adopting, marketing, and obtaining approval of reform plans would be adopted with confidence and with few revisions by other officials or stakeholders who want to study and reform their local governments.

One reason for the absence of models is that there are no guides, based on an agreed systematic process, for recording the lessons learned from successful and unsuccessful reforms and sharing the lessons among local government practitioners and other stakeholders in state, provincial, territorial, and national democracies. These facts also would be useful to reform researchers, who would eventually build the fact-based characteristics of successful and unsuccessful reform models.

Given the need for local government reform, lack of models, and scarcity of guidance, there is a need for a way to develop model statutes, local governments, and study and reform processes. That way, whatever the way might be itself is a process. The process must enable local governments to better satisfy the preferences of stakeholders with the benefits they receive and costs they pay for the functions of local governments. In the end, more stakeholders are able to live better lives.

What are the alternative possible ways forward to the models? There are probably several possible ways. The way chosen for the Guide is one that stakeholders can use to help them make reform choices. The Guide is based on the author’s review of recent local government reform practices and research in Appendix F: Selected Bibliography and his experience and observations outlined in the Preface, his thoughts about local governments and their reform, and the formation of ideas in his mind about what seems to be required and can be done to achieve more timely and successful reforms.

The author is aware of the complexity, disorganization, contentiousness, and difficulty of achieving the above outcomes for local government reform. But he believes stakeholder use of the Guide is the next phase toward making progress on satisfying the need for local government reform in the United States and other democracies.

Scope of the Guide

The need for local government reform guidance strongly suggests that the scope of the Guide cover a range of topics. The topics are disconnected, but the Guide aims to aid users in seeing, understanding, and applying the connections among the topics.

Elastic Local Government Reform Process

The study and reform of local governments occurs in a variety of contexts that are discussed later. These contexts can change over time and affect the study and reform. At least three possible contexts exist for local government reforms.

• The needed local government reforms are least complex, disorganized, contentious, and/or difficult. For example, city and county governments enter into a joint powers agreement to operate city and county parks and recreation functions jointly.

• The needed reforms are moderately complex, disorganized, contentious, and/or difficult. For example, a city transfers its parks and recreation functions to a county, and the county operates the consolidated parks and recreation function in the city and county.

• The needed reforms are most complex, disorganized, contentious, and/or difficult. For example, the reform expands beyond the first or second contexts to include the consolidation of city-county governments in which the new consolidated government performs all functions of both governments.

At the outset of their study and reform of local governments, Guide users are uncertain about which one of the three contexts exists and how it will affect needed reform. Therefore, the existence of these three possible contexts requires a reform process with the capacity to accommodate any reform context. While there are no guarantees, a process with an elastic capacity increases the chances that users can move more easily from one level to another of context complexity, disorganization, contentiousness, and/or difficulty. In so doing, Guide users make more informed choices and achieve more successful reforms.

Categories of Local Government Reforms

The local government reform process needs the capacity to achieve any one or combination of local government reforms. These reforms exist along with other types of local government reforms.

There are five categories of local government reform. All five categories are discussed in order to reveal the differences among the five categories and particularly between the functional and structural reforms. While there may be some duplications among the five categories, a discussion of the categories aims to facilitate study and employment of functional reforms and structural reforms for Guide users:

1. External local functional reforms are changes involving two or more local governments or governments and NGOs in the methods, number, sizes, and types of stakeholder and/or support functions they perform by increasing, decreasing, or realigning their services, operations, procedures, and processes, along with the personnel, supplies, equipment, buildings, and other essential components for performing them. At the same time, the governance functions, powers, numbers, types, and jurisdictional boundaries of governments remain unchanged. Examples include:

a. A city government and a school district negotiating an agreement for the city to deliver police protection to the students and staff of the school district instead of the district delivering the protection.

b. A city government and a county government negotiating with an NGO to operate the information-processing function for the governments instead of each government operating its own separate function.

2. External local structural reforms are changes involving two or more local governments through realignment of their governance functions, powers, numbers, types, and/or jurisdictional boundaries. Among other things, boundaries delineate the tax bases of the governments. Examples include:

a. A city government extends its boundaries by annexing land and improvements so it can construct wastewater treatment and storm water facilities that serve stakeholders who do not have access to these facilities.

b. A city and county consolidate their governments to form a unified government that aims to increase the effectiveness and/or efficiency of all stakeholder, support, and governance functions of both governments and to initiate a unified economic-development program to retain existing and attract new national and international businesses. The separate city and county governments are abolished.

3. Internal financial reforms consist of statutory changes in the financial operations of local governments. Examples include:

a. Revenue sources, such as own property and sales tax sources and intergovernmental revenue transfers from state, federal, or another local government

b. State, federal, and local financial requirements, or restrictions pertaining to expenditures of state, federal, and local revenues for local functions

c. Local government management of financial resources via budget, appropriation, and audit processes

4. Authority reforms consist of state-local and federal-local changes of the jurisdictional or autonomy powers that the state or federal constitution or statutes authorize or mandate local governments to exercise. Examples include:

a. General lawmaking powers, such as public safety and welfare

b. Specific lawmaking powers, such as a mass transit system

c. Shared lawmaking powers, such as primary and secondary education

d. Any other specific powers pertaining to general governance, management, and service provision

5. Internal process and organizational reforms consist of changes of the functions and structures inside local governments that local, state or federal statutes mandate or authorize. Examples include:

a. Operations, procedures, services, systems, equipment, facilities, and so forth used to perform the functions of local government

b. Number, types, and sizes of departments, divisions, and so forth that arrange the operations and procedures of local government

The Guide addresses making choices regarding reforms one and two, both of which are discussed in more detail later. The Guide does not address local government reforms three, four, and five, except that federal or state governments may authorize or mandate local government reforms under four. However, reforms one and/or two may affect three, four, and/or five. The latter reforms are unlikely to be options to functional or structural reforms.³³

Goals of the Guide

The need for local government reform, the need for reform guidance, and the scope of the Guide are the basis of the goals of the Guide. In prioritized order, the goals are:

1. to assist local government stakeholders and elected officials in democracies to study and, if necessary, to reform their local governments;

2. to assist elected state and federal officials to draft and enact legislation authorizing and supporting the study and reform of local governments;

3. to assist local government stakeholders and elected and appointed officials to collect and share facts about successful and unsuccessful local government reforms;

4. to collect facts that researchers can use to develop local government reform principles and models that improve the local government reform process;

5. to collect facts that can be used to choose whether to retain, revise, or replace the Guide;

6. to assist national organizations of local governments in their work to represent and support local governments; and

7. to assist international organizations in their work to establish and improve local governments in democracies of developing countries.

The goals of the Guide are intended to be valid for the study and reform of local governments in the United States and other democracies throughout the world.³⁴ The fact that stakeholders interact with two or more local governments partly determines the goals of the Guide. Stakeholders are usually located within the jurisdictions of different local governments and can affect and are influenced by the choices of elected officials of these governments. The possible combinations of governments are numerous. An example suggests a combination.

1. Stakeholders are legal residents of the governments in which they live, such as a county or its equivalent. Stakeholders affect and are affected by the choices of elected officials of county governments.

2. Stakeholders are also legal residents of one or more other local governments when the jurisdictional areas of these governments overlap the county government jurisdiction. These overlapping local governments include a city, a school district, and one or more special district governments. Stakeholders affect and are affected by the choices of elected officials of these overlapping governments.

3. Although they are not residents of nearby government jurisdictions, such as a county and city, stakeholders are affected by the choices made by elected officials of these governments. Stakeholders travel from the government jurisdictions that are their legal residences to learn, work, play, buy, sell, worship, socialize, visit, receive health care, and so forth at locations within the jurisdictional boundaries of nearby governments.

Many stakeholders find themselves in all three contexts. In one and two, stakeholders affect the choices of elected officials in a democracy by voting on candidates and referred measures. In three, stakeholders do not affect the choices of elected officials in a democracy because they cannot vote on candidates or referred measures in nearby governments.

In summary, stakeholders hold fundamental and often shared stakes in multiple local governments. The stakes are that stakeholders have shared use or access to the shared use of numerous functions of multiple local governments. Because of spillovers, they hold fundamental stakes in the governments in which they reside and in nearby local governments in which they do not reside. They hold at least two fundamental stakes in these governments:³⁵

• Stakeholders want satisfaction of their shared preferences for the shared benefits (well-being, good effects, and so forth) they receive from the multiple functions (goods, services, facilities, and so forth) of multiple local governments. Benefits are the elements of the stakeholder-government relationship that have positive value to stakeholders.

• Stakeholders want satisfaction of their shared preferences for the shared costs (taxes, user charges, and so forth) they pay for the multiple functions of multiple local governments. Costs are the elements of the stakeholder-government relationship that have negative value to stakeholders.

Stakeholders have shared preferences for the benefits and costs of a wide range of local government functions. For example, these functions include police protection, secondary education, and economic development. These preferences and functions are discussed in more detail later.

The Guide aims to aid stakeholders whose encounters with local governments and their reform have the following characteristics:

1. Necessity. Reform needs to at least be investigated and is probably an essential or basic requirement for more stakeholders to live better lives.

2. Complexity. Local governments are composed of many interrelated components for stakeholders to take apart, study, understand, and put together for an improved local government.

3. Disorganization. Reform lacks orderly arrangements and/or procedures for collecting and studying facts and making choices.

4. Contentiousness. Disagreements about reform are strongly felt and expressed by many stakeholders and require time and effort to understand and resolve.

5. Difficulty. When two, three, and/or four are small, reform is easier. When they are large, reform is harder.

Also, stakeholders do not frequently participate in local government reform. The reform process is not repeated periodically, like elections, lawmaking, and budgeting for local governments. The Guide assumes stakeholders are unfamiliar with many, if not most, aspects of reform. They have little reform knowledge and experience and few skills and abilities. This situation is not surprising, unexpected, or regrettable. Nevertheless, stakeholders have the courage or motivation to acquire this knowledge, experience, and skills. They realize that reforms can be important ways to preserve the community’s heritage of the past and prepare to survive and even excel in the future.

The Guide drills down from describing the surface generalities of functional and structural reforms to making choices about the bedrock specifics of reforms. It addresses what Guide users need to do or have done in order to make choices about local government reform with more confidence and success than would otherwise be the case.

The Guide is a proposed sequence of steps to assist stakeholders to make their choices about reform. Assistance occurs in steps one through nineteen. The Guide does not require, provoke, or recommend reform. Stakeholders make these choices. The Guide aims only to assist them to make choices during their study and reform of local governments.

In step twenty, the Guide also provides users with a way to collect facts about the lessons learned from successful and unsuccessful reforms. Users employ these facts to draft model state and federal reform statutes, to identify model local government reforms, and to design a model local government reform process. The information would also be useful in choosing whether to retain, revise, or replace the Guide. In summary, the facts would enable stakeholders to make better reform choices that improve performance of local governments and enable more stakeholders to live better lives in their community.

Use of the Guide

The goals of the Guide are achieved through the use of it. How may the Guide be used? How do users be put it into practice?

Use of the Guide depends on the stakeholders who want to study their local governments and, if necessary, reform them. At least two characteristics prepare stakeholders to study and reform local governments:

1. Stakeholder motivation, knowledge, skills, and abilities to study and reform local governments, that is, the internal confidence of stakeholders

2. Stakeholder knowledge of their local governments and their regional