County govrment: a guide to efficient and accountable government - Term Paper Example

Since the local demands and needs differ from place to place hence the county government varies widely across the various states. During the formative years the counties were merely a local body and were assigned fewer powers and responsibilities. The California government is the best example. In the beginning, their domain of jurisprudence was limited to maintenance of roads, bridges, parks and tracking the records of property and population statistics. Today its functions have diversified and expanded ranging from public health and welfare, fire services and complete administration of local governance and maintenance.

Today California has 58 counties – San Bernardino being the largest in area and Santa Cruz being the smallest. The county of Los Angeles recorded the highest population of about nine millions while the county of Alpine has merely about 1200 people (as stated in the report in California State Government Guide to Government). Therefore these diverse counties have varying needs and requirements unique to their origins. Perhaps, it would have become impossible for the state government to intervene and deliver proper functions of administration.

There is always a risk of marginalization of the smaller counties. The County government serves as the most diligent group to understand the local needs and provide proper solution to it. Many counties like the counties of New York, New Jersey, California play a ‘dual role’. It serves as a municipal unit providing services like maintenance of community buildings and amenities like parks, roads, emergency services, libraries etc. It also functions as a service delivery means for various state services like foster care, public health, public welfare, maintenance of jails and elections and many more.

Apart from these various issues of concern are dealt with through vigilance and attention. One amongst them for example is the Climatic Change due to Global warming. Addressing this issue of environmental concern the AB 32 Mandatory recycling regulation was proposed and it further plans various strategies to involve the states in collaborate addressing these areas of public concern at multiple levels. The Counties encourages and helps to develop creativity and aspirations of its fellow members in order to create a community feeling and initiative for issues concerning the social, economic and political growth.

For example, this year the North Carolina Association of County Commissions (NCACC) has conducted outstanding county Award that would provide ‘innovative’ remedy to cater to the needs of social concerns like rescue services, fire and emergency service, teen motor vehicle driving issues and so on. One of the major concerns of today is taken the ownership of things. People often feel happy to complain about things that affect them negatively without suggesting proper solutions to the issues.

The county government takes the initiative and steps in to not only understand and evaluate the issues concerning the locality but also takes up the charge of devising proper remedy to eradicate those issues for good. Therefore the first step i.e. identification of the issues are important in order to get proper plan of action to achieve the remedy. This has been very well articulated by the director of research of Westchester County bureau, Otto Grand ford Cartwright in his article Efficiency in County Government.

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