In my plan, the counties would gain more more control through a shared services model.  This would allow the counties to more easily manage cities and move resources to where they are needed more quickly.

Shared Services

There are lots of departments and groups that are setup for each city where a more efficient way of managing the people and the work load would be to have it controlled by the county instead of the city.  The departments that come to mind first are the Finance/Accounting, Police, Fire, Road Crew, Parks, City workers like the engineers and planning departments.

By using the shared service model it will allow significant spending reductions by cities and counties. Instead of having accounting and finance people in each city all doing similar things, you would have 3-4 people handling all of the payable’s and accounting for the cities.  This would also ensure that the financials are being reported consistently across the cities in each county.

Instead of having 10 police chiefs for 10 cities, you would have 1 police chief for all 10 cities.  Instead of having 10 fire departments, you would have 3-4 strategically located so that they could respond in appropriate time when needed. This would optimize the workforce probably allowing a cut of 50-60% of the department; while keeping the same service level.  Planning and engineering would be better managed if they were consolidated so that you had 3-4 instead of one per city.

By developing this model you have cut the spending by a significant amount while maintaining the services needed.  Additionally, the revenue that the counties currently receive from taxes would cover a large portion of the new employees working for the county.  Below is an example of one county and how having a shared service model can cut government spending.

Property Taxes

Under this plan, there would be no need for any taxes other then the county and city portion of the sales taxes.  So property taxes as well as any other county fees would be repealed.

Additional Taxes

With the counties controlling all of the money there would be no need for city fees or taxes.  All of those taxes would be collected by the county and then used for those paid positions.

By creating a simple “sales tax only” tax for entire counties, it helps to create a more efficient and controllable government on the county and city level.

Business Type Activities

All business type activities like the golf courses and other lands and businesses should be sold.  The money earned

County Bonds

Bonds at the County level need to be repealed and all the debts paid back. Counties should not have the ability to incur debt.