By PHILIP B. ELFSTROM and JAY SMITH
Chairman of the Kane County Board since 1971, Elfstrom is treasurer and immediate past president of the Urban Counties Council of Illinois. He has served on the Kane County Board since 1969 and holds a B.A. from the University of Kentucky.
A field administrator for the Urban Counties Council of Illinois, under a grant from the Lilly Endowment and administered by the National Association of Counties, Smith served as an elected member of the Champaign County Board from May 1972 until May 1974. He holds a B.S. in economics and an M.A. in social science From the University of Illinois.
The authors acknowledge reliance on a paper, "Illinois Local Government Under the 1970 Constitution." by Thomas D. Wilson (Normal, Ill.), Division of Continuing Education and Public Services, Illinois State University, 1975.
County government in transition
EDITOR'S NOTE: Observations in this article have more direct application to the urbanized counties of the state than they do to less populated counties, but the article does not attempt to review developments in Cook County.
OVER A PERIOD of time the position of counties as the fundamental unit of local government has been usurped by the cities. Counties continue to operate along the same lines as they did in the nineteenth century.
Currently, however, there are several indications that county government is becoming a brighter star in the Illinois local government galaxy. The major catalysts of change have been (1) the reapportionment impact on the composition of county boards that was first felt in 1972; (2) the opportunities made available by the new Illinois Constitution (though counties have been somewhat slow in pursuing their opportunities); and (3) new federal and state government policies affecting local governments.
Effective in 1972, the size of most county boards was significantly reduced, though boards still remain fairly large. A few had been as large as 50 members and many still consist of 25 to 29 members. But there are 17 commission counties whose boards have been and still are composed of three elected commissioners. Boards now generally represent the county constituency on a one person, one vote basis. Some counties—Kane for example—have set up single-member districts for board elections. As a consequence, standards of constituent accountability have been imposed on board members that are not experienced in counties which retain multiple-member districts.
The 1972 election brought in new board members whose orientation and attitudes differed significantly from those who served as "county supervisors" prior to 1972. A survey study conducted by Professor Thomas D. Wilson of Illinois State University concluded that compared to board members who served immediately prior to the 1972 election, those who were elected in 1972 were,
". . . more receptive to county reapportionment, to having the county provide urban type services to unincorporated areas, to having an elected county executive and/or a full-time appointed professional administrator for the county, to centralizing local welfare under a county-wide administrator and to combining township road districts. 'New' board members were also more receptive to the 1970 Illinois Constitution . . . including home rule, differential taxation, the combining or elimination of county offices and an extensive grant of power to engage in cooperative ventures with other units of local government." (Wilson, "ISU Reports on County Board Member Altitudes," Illinois County and Township Official, January 1974, p. 11-17.).
A great part of this change can be
tied to the fact that Illinois county
government since 1972 has not had the
institutional linkage it once had to
township government. Township supervisors no longer automatically serve
concurrently on the county board. The
link was not severed altogether, however, because many county board
members continue to serve as township
officials.* House Bill 1645 (P.A. 79-457), passed at the spring session, permits simultaneous holding of both offices for persons elected on or before 1977.
The new Constitution Other changes were brought about because the Constitution took away
from counties the collector's fee they received *In an opinion to Jack Hoogasian, state's attorney. Lake County (S-877, 3/17/75}, Attorney
General William Scott held the offices of township supervisor and county board member incompatible (see
Although adoption of the new Constitution has encouraged changes in
Illinois county government in several
ways, there are only a few examples of
implementation of the Constitution's
positive provisions by and among counties. The glamor of the new Constitution, particularly its home rule section,
probably heightened interest and attracted candidates for the 1972 county
elections. Most certainly, discussion of
county related issues became more intense than before. Nine county home
rule referenda were held in 1972, but all
failed (see Illinois Issues, August 1975, p. 244).
306 / Illinois Issues / October 1975
Will the basic of local government of the Nineteenth Century rise phoenix-like to stature in the last decades of the Twentieth Century?
from other units of local government for property tax administration
services. The fee had been an important
source of revenue for counties, and its
loss has caused counties to search for
new sources of revenue and to become
more conscious of their cost-effectiveness. State and federal policies have also
caused changes in Illinois county
government. A few recent state developments have strengthened the position of
county government, but county officials
are becoming increasingly resentful of
the tendency of the state to circumscribe their decision-making
autonomy while simultaneously placing expenditure obligations on the counties. A case in point was a 1974 legislative decision requiring certain governments to bear a major part of the burden of judicial salary increases, but
H.B. 437, passed at the spring session,
will reverse this decision if signed into
law by the governor. The federal
government on the other hand, while
making demands on local governments, has often offered counties the
financial resources needed to carry out
innovative programs: manpower and
community development are recent examples. Evidence of new vigor in Illinois
county government can be seen in
several areas including (1) revision of
the internal governing structure of
counties; (2) modernization of county
administrative management; (3) expanded county service delivery; (4) new
trends in county financing; and (5) new
decision-making autonomy for counties. Where there are not concrete instances of change in these areas, there is
at least lively discussion. The upshot of revisions in the internal governing structure of counties is
that county boards are becoming more
assertive. The plural executive system still exists—with an elected clerk,
sheriff, treasurer, coroner, state's attorney, etc., each with statutory executive authority in his own bailiwick—but
it is fading. Several counties in 1972
passed referenda to abolish the office of
coroner as an elective office, substituting an appointed officer. A referendum
on the abolition of the elected recorder
failed in Kane County in 1972, but
county hoards in various counties are
again considering referenda on the
elimination or consolidation of certain
elective offices in 1976. The elimination of these elective offices is largely
the result of the 1970 Constitution (Article VII, section 4 (c)) which establishes only three elective county offices—sheriff, clerk and treasurer—and allows others to be elected or appointed by law or county ordinance.
And even the offices of sheriff, clerk
and treasurer may be eliminated, made
appointive, or changed as to term by
countywide referendum. If the county board was not previously the most important entity in the
constellation of county executive offices, in most instances it is now. County boards control the budgets of all
county offices. Control of these purse
strings is a formidable policy lever.
Boards, particularly in the urbanized
counties, have used their budgetary control as an instrument of management
modernization, almost always with the
lull cooperation of other elected officials. The centralization of a number
of administrative services under the
auspices of the board in some counties,
while done to achieve cost savings, has
also increased the authority of the county board itself. The kinds of functions
being performed on a central service
basis in many counties—others are sure
to follow—include purchasing, personnel administration, data processing,
microfilming, management and budget
analysis, and grants administration. Perhaps the most important development affecting the management modernization of Illinois counties and reinforcing the authority of the board within the county structure is the trend
toward the establishment of professional staff support for county boards.
While the majority of Illinois county
hoards still lack even a secretary (other
than the county clerk), a few have large
support staffs directed by a person
whose job description sounds like that
of a "county manager." In 1972, Lake
County established a department of management services, and at about the
same time St. Clair County set up an
office of administration. The directors
of these departments in Lake and St.
Clair supervise sizable professional
staffs and have broad discretionary
authority in administrative areas. Several other counties, including
DeKalb, DuPage, Kankakee, Madison,
Me Lean, Peoria, Sangamon, Will and
Winnebago, have at least one qualified
person who serves full time as a general
administrative aide to the county board.
Most recently, Warren County (population 21,000) became the smallest county
to retain a professional county board
administrative assistant. Some of those
counties that do not have an appointed
general administrator have been able to
call on elected officials to perform comparable duties. In both Kane and
Tazewell counties, for instance, the
elected auditor serves in many ways as
an administrative assistant to the county board. Assuming more roles Counties are also becoming leaders in
tackling environmental problems.
Several have begun developing solid
waste disposal systems including
sanitary landfills. The counties' participation in land use control through
zoning and building regulation has a decided impact on the environment, and
though there are still several counties
without zoning codes, many have recently enacted zoning ordinances for the Social services is another area of activity. State and federal policies have
encouraged community treatment for
adult and juvenile offenders, for the
mentally handicapped, and for dependent and neglected children. County
governments have been called upon to
develop innovative corrections and
probation programs and to create
systems of intervention designed to prevent juvenile crime. Funds from the October 1975 / Illinois Issues / 307
In addition to internal structural and
administrative changes, Illinois counties are assuming an expanded service-delivery role, prompted by both local
demands and federal funding incentives. More counties are becoming involved in public works programs
although only a few have public works
departments. Legislation passed at the
spring session would allow counties to
perform other municipal type public
works services such as street lighting
and sidewalk construction (H.B. 91).
The tone of progressive
change in county government
rings more clearly in
chorus than it does in solo
federal Law Enforcement Assistance
Administration have offered strong incentives for innovations in these areas.
Finally, counties have become interested in coordinating job training for
targeted underemployed or unemployed individuals through the
CETA (Comprehensive Employment
and Training Act) Manpower program.
Illinois counties will, in effect, become
"agencies" directly involved in attacking the problems of urban blight. The
federal Community Development Act is
a formula block grant program that
combines a number of existing
programs of the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development and
designates five urban Illinois counties
for formula entitlements, with all other
counties eligible to apply for discretionary funds. Short of money Short of money, counties have asked
for a distribution of sales and income
taxes that recognizes that counties serve
incorporated as well as unincorporated
areas. They have also sought permission to raise court fees—which now
fall far short of covering the costs of
judicial administration—and permission to levy a motor vehicle tax countywide. There has been no legislative
enactment of any of these proposals,
but the direction counties have taken in
their legislative requests indicates a
recognition that the property tax is outmoded and that more elastic revenue
sources must be found. As the debate over the property tax
grows, county government will be more
and more in the spotlight. Because
counties are responsible for collection
of the property tax, they often receive
the blame for the inequities of the tax, a
blame that is in important respects misplaced. Counties are hardly responsible
for the high levels of the tax. In 1972
(the most recent year for which complete statistics are available) they received only 8.5 per cent of all property
tax collections in the state while 58 per
cent went to the schools. Inequities in
assessments are partly the responsibility
of county governments because they are
supposed to insure fairness within each
county. But, it is also the responsibility
of the townships, which do the initial
assessing, and the state Department of
Local Government Affairs, which is
required to equalize assessment levels
among counties. A special joint
legislative subcommittee (the "Clarke
Property Tax Subcommittee"—see
"Politics of equalizing the property
tax," Illinois Issues, June 1975, p.
179ff) has proposed procedural
reforms, some of which may be on the
legislative agenda for years to come.
One likely end result is that county
government will carry more responsibility in the future for assuring assessment equity. The home rule question Other new powers It should be noted that the tone of
progressive change in county government rings more clearly in chorus than
it does in solo. In no single county is the
breadth of depth of transformation as
great as that described in this article.
Barriers remain. County government is not yet highly
visible to the citizenry, but in the face of
the proliferation of state and federal
bureaucratic management regions it
seems possible that voters will take an
increasing interest in county government. Counties are in a sense already
"regions," regions whose decisions
voters can measurably control. As a
New Jersey local government study
commission concluded, "Even if county
government had not existed in the
Anglo-American structure it would
have to be invented now."
308 / Illinois Issues / October 1975
Despite this impressive list, Illinois
counties have had to exercise restraint
in developing new services and
programs because of their limited
revenue base. In recent years counties
have lost the fee for tax collection services, they have lost sizable personnel
property tax revenue, and they continue to lose the base for their income
and sales tax receipts as unincorporated areas are annexed into
municipalities. Although revenue sharing and other federal funding programs
have partially compensated for the
losses, counties are now far weaker
fiscally than they were four years ago.
Additionally, because of inflation,
federal aid in real dollars to counties actually decreased nationally by nearly 3
per cent in 1974. A cursory study by the
Urban Counties Council of Illinois in
the summer of 1974 indicated that the
general funds of 11 of 18 counties surveyed were in the red.
Of all of the changes in county
government in Illinois, none is likely to
be more significant than the desires of
some counties for more independence in
decision-making. The home rule question will probably be on the ballot in
1976 in some counties and in the next
decade will most certainly be a major
issue in the urbanized counties. Chances
for passage should be much greater in
1976 than in 1972 when home rule was
new and unknown in Illinois. Now there
has been a substantial number of legal decisions which have reasonably defined home rule powers. The necessary
change in county government in order
to acquire home rule is passing a
referendum to create the elective office
of count) chief executive (Constitution,
Art. VIII, sec. 6(a)). Counties that approach the home rule question properly
will have time to employ citizen study
groups to explore the questions of county government reorganization.
Even without home rule, the new
Constitution has given counties a degree
of autonomy. The constitutional
authority granted local governments to
enter into intergovernmental agreements has definitely increased their
powers. One interpretation of the intergovernmental cooperation provision
of the Constitution suggests that local
units may "piggyback" powers through
interlocal agreements. For example, a
county might take on certain specific
powers of a home rule municipality
through an appropriate service agreement with such a municipality. The
1970 Constitution also offers counties
(and municipalities) an innovative
means of financing certain services
(Art. VII, sec. 7). Under this provision,
a county may establish a special services area, with an added tax in only
that area for the special service provided, but no county government has established such an area. This new provision means that county government can provide a new service to an area without taxing the entire county. It is
also an alternate to the pyramid of
special taxing districts.