Supervisors: $35,465
Treasurer:Â Â Â $56,172
Sheriff:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â $75,606
Recorder:Â Â Â Â $55,906
Attorney:Â Â Â Â $92,627
Auditor:Â Â Â Â Â Â $56,480
These figures are the baseline for following example. Years ago while running for County Supervisor I put forth a brave proposal. One that quickly saw my support among the local party establishment disappear. I called for an academic study into the savings generated by reducing Iowa's 99 counties down to 25. I now possess better formats for presenting this idea to people around the nation. For the readers, should you be a college student studying political science, a professor, or someone who knows a student in this field, this subject would make for a great Ph.D. thesis, either pertaining to your individual state or expanded to include all fifty states for the truly courageous researcher.
It should be noted that all counties do not pay the same for the above-mentioned positions. So the resulting savings are to be interpreted as an example only. We will take the position of Sheriff, using Des Monies County as our example, the yearly expenditure for tax payers is 7,484,994 dollars . However, if we were to redistrict and compute for 25 counties we come up with 1,890,150 that is a yearly savings of 5,594,844.
I will now calculate the yearly savings using three supervisors for each county and the above elected offices. These figures would represent an approximate 75% reduction in county government budgets for these elected positions. The total yearly savings would come out to $32,796,394 dollars a year. That is a whole lot of capital that Iowa could be utilizing better. Doesn't it make you wonder what the cost savings in your state would be?
Of course this would not be an easy thing to accomplish. For starters, the party systems would fight tooth and nail against such a reconstruction, after all, herein lies the loyalty factor and the power behind the two party system, patronage. A carrot of enticement would have to be offered, my suggestion, since the duty load would be increased upon these office holders' offer across the board pay increases for these specifically elected posts, should a state have the political courage to restructure. There would still be plenty of cash available for other pursuits. Examples are ample, one would think, as across the nation state budgets have cut school funds. Moreover, show me a state that doesn't have crumbling infrastructure and shovel ready projects that need finances. For that matter savings could be applied to hire more county workers, police personnel and equipment. Who knows, one could possibly even see a reduction in taxes. Tax reductions that would not hamper our economy or simply apply the savings to our state or national debt. States doing such restructuring could lend the Federal Government money, keeping some of our national debt in-house.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
