Right off the bat, let me make clear I don’t wish anyone out of a job.
That said, I think we are top heavy in government services here in Allen County.
For a population of 13,100 — the size of a small town anywhere else in the world — we have a duplication of services.
For those who live in Iola, Humboldt, LaHarpe or Moran, they pay for both city and county road crews and city and county law enforcement services through their property taxes.
What further exacerbates the situation is that many who choose to live outside a town’s arbitrary limits do so to escape the double taxation. The result is that our downtowns are suffering.
Here’s a proposal: Put all Allen Countians under one tax umbrella and make these services countywide.
OK, OK. The first idea may be a little rash, but Wyandotte County’s done it successfully for 20 years.
The second has legs and we have already taken steps in that direction with our countywide ambulance/EMS and 911 dispatch services.
The upside?
More efficient delivery of services with less duplication and a much greater sharing of costs, alleviating burdens on individual cities. Humboldt, for example, wants a $100,000 machine that chews up pavement. That’s a big ticket item for a little town.
But if its street department were folded into the county’s Public Works Department, the purchase of such a machine is more manageable, and other municipalities could use it as well.
What one city can’t swing alone, we could manage together.
SMALL towns, especially those who feel threatened by decreasing populations, feel a need to hold on to their individual services even though they present a financial burden to local taxpayers.
Perhaps those in Humboldt or Iola think their police departments do a better job than could one managed by the county. But as the countywide ambulance/EMS and 911 arrangements have proved, the residents there continue to receive just as good of service, at a considerable savings.
