Illinois: Land of 7,000 Governments

Chicago Magazine ^ | September 7, 2012 | Whet Moser

[re_tail20]

People in Illinois like to complain about big government. But maybe there's a bigger problem: little government. Lots and lots of them, from municipalities to townships to special districts to school districts. Every five years the Census does a census of governments, and Illinois ranks first, as it always does, with 6,968, over 2,000 more than the runner-up, Pennsylvania. And we don't just have more governments than anywhere else; we have more of just about every kind of government the Census surveys. 2007 was the last year that a detailed breakdown was available; here are how the top four states broke down:

* Illinois, population about 12 million: 102 county governments; 1,299 municipal governments; 1,432 township governments; 912 public school systems; 3,249 special district governments (everything from the CTA to mosquito abatement districts)

* Pennsylvania, population about 12 million: 66 county governments; 1,016 municipal governments; 1,546 township governments; 515 public school systems; 1,728 special district governments

* Texas, population about 25 million: 254 county governments; 1,209 municipal governments; 1,081 school district governments; 2,291 special district governments

* California, population about 37 million: 57 county governments; 478 municipal governments; 1,102 public school systems; 58 dependent school systems; 2,765 special district governments

We have a lot of little counties, and those counties have a lot of little governments.

[Tenacious 1]

Well, there you go. The problem in Illinois is not not too much government spending, it’s the number of governments that spend.

They could get rid of a lot of those governments if they just consolidated Chicago by half.

[Dr. Sivana]

Your mileage will vary. I live in an unincorporated rural part of the state. Fed, state, county government. There are some special taxing districts (e.g. school, library) which basically is a subset of the county government, but hardlly qualifies as a true government entity.

[vette6387]

Wow, we in California are NOT First in something! Compared to Illinois, we actually look relatively sane! But the “special districts” are an anathema everywhere. We have too many of them with their “boards” drawing hefty pay and their “employees” getting generous pay and benes. We called “Animal Control” on a Thursday recently to remove a dead deer from our property. It took them five days to respond and only then after we called our County Supervisor to complain. Evidently they have a “special phone number” because when we called, we were told by the VM system that we were #26 on their call waiting list. The AC “officer (replete with sidearm) showed up within an hour of our call to the Supe.