RECONSTRUCTION: PRINCIPLES, PRECEDENTS AND PROPOSALS
We have been at some pains to put the county into right relationships.
Ideally, it is to be a supervised local division of the state
administration (such supervision to insure strict accountability but
to be unobstructive); it is to be relieved by the state of not a few
incompatible, back-breaking burdens; it is to have (with some necessary
limitations) a free hand in making over its internal organization for
whatever obligations of public service may be laid upon it in the
future. In some respects its greatest service is to consist in receding
entirely from public service, while in other respects its importance
should be greatly enhanced.
Practically, these external adjusting movements will proceed
concurrently, with varying speed, according as the need for the one
or the other may exist or be recognized. Their full fruition will
still leave the county, within its restricted sphere, with a very
distinct and honorable body of functions to perform. And for this,
the county, now so largely an unfit instrument of a self-governing,
self-respecting community, must be made over from within.
The basic formula of reconstruction is not far to seek. In every state
the forward looking part of the citizenry which interests itself
in better government for long toyed with the theory of “checks and
balances,” which might be denominated for popular purposes as “safety
via complication.” Past generations put a premium on _ingenious_
political devices. Just as to some people medicine which is not bitter
is not efficacious, so to the old school of political reformers,
government was dangerous if it could be seen through and understood.
But ingenuity and complexity in city government “came high.” The cost
of them was “conspicuous failure.” In the end the people rebelled and
the end of the old way of thinking about government was in sight.
Witness: the movements of those cities which since 1901 have so
cheerfully though so thoughtfully “scrapped” the historic dogma by
the act of adopting the “commission” plan. Ingenious, complicated,
inefficient, corrupt, city governments have given way literally by
the hundreds to a new system, the corner-stone principle of which is
simplicity: one set of officials to elect and watch; one place to go to
get things done; one source to which to direct criticism when things go
wrong.
In a word, the Short Ballot, in its fullest implication. It is not
simply that there should be few officers to elect. County candidates
are not especially obscure to rural voters and the ballots in the
country districts are not often absurdly long. The farmer probably
makes a better job of it when it comes to making up his ticket than
any other class of citizen. It is also necessary that “those officers
should be elective which are important enough to attract _and
deserve_ examination,” that is, officers who stand at the sources of
public policy--not sheriffs or coroners or county clerks; not officers
who simply follow out a statutory routine, but those who are supposed
to lay out programs of county action.
And then, the Short Ballot connotes unification of powers. For what
does it avail to watch, to criticize a single set of officers if all
the while the really important work of the county is performed and the
really important damage is committed by the officials who are obscure
and therefore unwatched?
County government, as it stands, is the very personification of
non-conformity to these approved principles of political organization.
Starting, therefore, at the base of an ideal structure, let us proceed
to the task of reconstruction.
Under ideal home-rule conditions the county will have been brought face
to face with the obligation to stand on its own feet. It will look
about for appropriate means to redeem that obligation. The electorate
will be made responsible for its collective conduct by virtue of
accurate representation in the county’s council. Responsibility will
first be secured in the very make-up of the governing body, which is
the source of power in any popular government. No stereotyped uniform
plan of organization will do; no slavish copying of the “New England”
type, or the “southern” type: counties differ too widely for that. But
natural and legitimate cleavages of public opinion will be recognized
and represented. Minor geographical divisions which have a distinct
identity may be given a separate voice in the county board, but if the
county is a geographical and social unit, the form of the governing
body will reflect the fact. And if the county is co-extensive with a
city, that circumstance will be given due weight.
But the county board will be something more than an epitomized
electorate. It will be clothed, as such bodies rarely are, with the
power not only to discover what the people want, but to translate their
wishes into deeds of administration. Instead of working as now through
alien instruments in the person of independent officials, it will
control the operating mechanism of the county, which will be of its
own selection. Shall we take away from the people the power to choose
the sheriffs, the county clerk, the surveyor, the superintendent of
the poor? Yes, take away the selection, but reinforce their control.
Abandon the separation of powers? Yes, do away with the three-ring (or
perhaps twelve- or twenty-ring) circus, and get down to the serious
business of government. For business never was successfully organized
except on the principle that the head controls the tail and all that
intervenes. In terms of law, the county board, subject of course to
state legislative and administrative supervision, will exercise all the
powers of the corporation, including those of appointment, of revenue
raising and of appropriation.
A long step toward the fulfillment of these principles in actual
life has been taken in the county of Los Angeles, Cal., one of those
communities in which the doctrine of complexity was once carried
to absurd extremes. But the new charter of this county, which was
the first to be adopted[21] under the home-rule provisions of the
constitution, proceeded in great measure in the light of the theory
exemplified by the commission plan in the cities. The supervisors
are retained on the elective list as the constitution requires, but
the county superintendent of schools, coroner, public administrator,
county clerk, treasurer, tax collector, recorder and surveyor, all of
whom were formerly elected by the voters, are now appointed by and
are responsible to the county governing body, which is the board of
supervisors. The sheriff, the auditor, the assessor and the district
attorney are still elective. In thus extending the power of the
board of supervisors, the charter framers require that, with a few
exceptions, the officers shall be chosen from competitive lists on
the basis of merit and fitness. The fee system is abolished. The Los
Angeles achievement, while it falls far short of the measure of unity
which is present in many counties governed by the commissioner system,
is important as a recent conscious step toward greater simplicity.
And now that we have perfected a mechanism for expressing the general
will of the people of the county, it remains to arm the governing
body more effectively with the means for translating mere wishes into
concrete acts of administration. To put it otherwise, we must mobilize
the operating departments under effective leadership.
Recall, first, our statement in an earlier chapter that the county
in the United States is almost universally devoid of a definite
executive head. One exception is the two first-class counties of New
Jersey (Hudson and Essex) where until recent years the so-called
board of chosen freeholders were elected from districts. Under these
circumstances the need was felt for some agency to represent the
unity of interest among the several localities, in the government
of the county. Accordingly, the office of supervisor was conceived.
The incumbent is elected by the people of the county and has powers
not unlike those of the mayor in many cities. He is required “to be
vigilant and active in causing the laws and ordinances of the county
to be executed and enforced.” Subject to the civil service law he has
power to suspend and remove but not to appoint subordinates. He may
propose legislation and veto resolutions.
Fifteen years of experience have not commended this institution to
wider adoption. With one or two exceptions the supervisors, like most
mayors of cities, have not been men of force or imagination and they
have been controlled, apparently, by the same political elements as the
board of freeholders upon which they were supposed to have served as a
check.
As these pages are being written, a single county in the West, almost
unconsciously it would seem and under influences that upon the surface
seem reactionary, has taken one of the longest progressive steps toward
administrative unity ever taken by an American county. The county in
mind is Denver, Colorado. Ever since the constitution was amended in
1902 the city and county have been geographically identical. Article
XX, Section 2, stipulates that “the officers of the city and county
of Denver shall be such as by _appointment_ or election may be
provided for by the charter.” On May 9, 1916, Denver abandoned the
commission plan of government and vested the appointment of city _and
county_ officials in the mayor.
The New Jersey and Denver experiments point in the general direction
of administrative unity; they do not come within hailing distance of
the expectations which seem to be justified by recent developments
in American cities. For after all, the practical problem is the same
in every civil division: to dispose effectively and economically
of the visible supply of work to be accomplished or service to be
rendered. And this, some of the more aggressive of our cities, such
as Dayton and Springfield, 0., Niagara Falls, N. Y., and some forty
others have essayed to do through a form of organization which is unity
and simplicity reduced to its lowest terms: the plan of the typical
business corporation. A board of directors to represent the people; a
city manager to appoint and direct the heads of departments--that is
all there is to it. And it works!
In similar fashion the people of our counties will surely consent to
a reorganization of _their_ public affairs. The members of the
county boards will not follow the example of some of our present county
commissioners and personally descend to the management of the details
of administration. They will learn the art of delegating authority
without losing control. And just as the people will have simplified
their problem of citizenship by concentrating their attention on the
governing group, so the representative body will focus administrative
responsibility in a chief subordinate. To be specific, the county
of the future will employ a manager chosen appropriately with sole
reference to his fitness to manage public affairs and without regard to
residence, religion or views on the Mexican situation, who will pick up
the authority of the county where the board of directors leaves it off.
With the installation of the manager with adequate powers, the county
will have supplied the largest single essential in any collective
effort: leadership. Without that directing, driving force it is hardly
strange that counties, up to the present, have headed for nowhere in
particular.
And leadership in county affairs signifies specifically what?
To begin with, it will now be possible to build up the correct sort
of subsidiary organization. For instance, with such leadership it
should not have been necessary, for the lack of a proper executive
responsibility, for Hudson County in New Jersey to impose upon the
local judges the odd function of selecting a mosquito commission, and
to dispose the rest of the appointing power as the fancy of the moment
might dictate.
A county manager who has the power to appoint and discharge will of
course be in a position to issue orders with a reasonable assurance
that they will be obeyed without a writ of mandamus or some other
form of judicial intervention. Public business will be speeded up
accordingly.
And then, the presence of a responsible executive will supply
an indispensable condition of a scientific budget. The finance
committee of the governing board is no proper substitute, for, as
Mr. Cartwright[22] says: “Such a committee cannot have either the
understanding of the full meaning of the budget, or the personal
interest in properly performing the work of preparation that an
executive head should have who is personally responsible in very large
degree for the success or failure of the entire county administration.
The man who is officially responsible ought personally to lay the
plans, summoning to his aid such advisers as he deems best suited to
give him counsel.” The budget is the financial plan or program in a
given year. It must see the needs of the county in their unity. It is
the proper occupation of a single directing mind which is continuously
and intimately in touch through his subordinates, with every need of
the county. Not that the county manager will have the “power of the
purse” and dictate the financial policy of the county. On the contrary,
he will simply formulate the financial program for his employers to
accept or reject, in whole or in part as they see fit.
The county manager will also act as a balance against any undue
pressure from any geographical division in the county or any division
of the public service. He will discover possible new services or better
methods of performing old services. In short, he will be the specially
accredited agent of the county board in carrying out its policies and
the initiating force of public opinion. Through the governing board
and the county manager there will be a clear and direct succession of
authority from the people to the scullion at the almshouse and the
assistant turnkey at the county jail.
A proposal that practically squares with this formula was put forth
some years ago by a group of Oregon citizens under the leadership of W.
S. U’Ren, in a proposed amendment to the state constitution. Under the
projected scheme the county business would be in the hands of a board
of three directors to be elected by the voters of the county for terms
of six years. This board would have power to “make all expedient rules
and regulations for the successful, efficient and economic management
of all county business and property.” It would be necessary, however,
to employ a business manager who would be the “chief executive of the
county”; the choice of this officer not to be limited to the state
of Oregon; his salary to be determined by the board. With him would
rest the appointment of the subordinate county officers. The board of
directors would be empowered to audit bills, either directly or through
an auditor.
A more complete and detailed plan of county government, following the
same general principles, was embodied in a bill introduced in the New
York legislature in 1916.[23] It provided that any county, except those
comprising New York City, might adopt the statute by petition and
referendum. The county would therefore be governed by a board of five
county supervisors who would act through a manager, whose duties would
be:
(_a_) To attend all meetings of the board of supervisors;
(_b_) To see that the resolutions and other orders of the board
of supervisors and the laws of the state required to be enforced by
such board, are faithfully carried out by the county, including all
officers chosen by the electors;
(_c_) To recommend to the board of supervisors such measures as
he may deem necessary or expedient for the proper administration of
the affairs of the county and its several offices;
(_d_) To appoint all county officers whose selection by
the electors is not required by the constitution, except county
supervisors and the county auditor or comptroller, for such terms of
office as are provided by law.
Subject to resolutions of the board of supervisors, he shall:
(_e_) Purchase all supplies and materials required by every
county officer, including the superintendent of the poor;
(_f_) Execute contracts on behalf of the board of supervisors
when the consideration therein shall not exceed five hundred dollars;
(_g_) Obtain from the several county officers reports of their
various activities in such form and at such times as the board of
supervisors may require;
(_h_) Obtain from the several county officers itemized estimates
of the probable expense of conducting their offices for the ensuing
year, and transmit the same to the board of supervisors with his
approval or disapproval of each and all items therein, in the form of
a tentative budget.
(_i_) Perform such other duties as the board of supervisors may
require.
In the exercise of these duties the county manager would have power to
examine witnesses, take testimony under oath and make examination of
the affairs of any office.
Inasmuch as the constitution of New York State requires the election
by the people of the sheriff, district attorney, county clerk and
register, the method of choosing these officers could not be affected
by statute.
The Alameda County plan referred to in the preceding chapter provides
for a city-and-county manager who would have charge not only of county
administration but of the execution of the policies of the several
constituent boroughs.
Such are a few definite proposals for fundamental political
reconstruction of the county. Recalling, again, the low estate of our
_city_ governments, a decade since, the hope for an early and
thoroughgoing betterment of the county system, in the department of
fundamental structure, would seem to be not altogether vain.
[21] November, 1912.
[22] Otho G. Cartwright, Director of Westchester County Research Bureau.
[23] For text see Appendix, pp. 251-256.