MISSOURI WATCH: MISSOURI IS STIFFING ITS COUNTIES

Although never envisioned as playing such a role, Missouri's 114 counties have become the Rodney Dangerfields of state government. They have been cast in this role for a number of reasons, none of them good, but perhaps the foremost casting director has been the Missouri General Assembly.

Like poor Rodney, the counties don't get much respect regardless of how well their commissions and other elected officers do their job. Perhaps the most ignoble of all of such disrespectabilities is the refusal of the state to recognize the vital role counties play in government and its failure to pay for programs over which the counties have no control.

There are numerous examples of the extra financial burdens heaped upon counties by Jefferson City, but one multimillion-dollar "unfunded mandate" from the state Capitol will start the ball rolling. Since the 1980s, when the nation's crime rate began taking off, the state's juvenile justice system has expanded to meet an ever increasing demand, and since much of the budget of this system rests on county-funded employees, the financial drain has been substantial.

For much of this crime-escalation period, state officials remained indifferent to the extra financial burden being borne by county governments. Recently, after years of county reminders of these higher child justice costs, the General Assembly agreed to assume some of the personal services costs of the juvenile system. Yet when the plan was announced, lawmakers had made provisions for so-called multi county judicial circuits but had failed to make provisions for added funding for larger circuits, which include the state's 10 largest counties. Missouri simply passed along the burden of expanded counties. Missouri simply passed along the burden of expanded caseloads to areas where a majority of its residents live.

No one, whether in urban or outstate setting, believes this is an equitable solution, nor a safe one for citizens whose lives could be dramatically affected by a breakdown in the juvenile justice system. If smaller counties are to receive some relief from the higher costs attached to controlling juvenile crime, then larger counties should also receive proportionate increased assistance from Jefferson City.

Another example worth citing is a recent decision by the Missouri Department of Transportation to shut all of the state's counties out of the increased revenue the state highway agency will be receiving from the recently enacted Federal Transportation Equity Act, known as "TEA-21." With a single vote by the DOT's six-member commission, 144 counties and the City of St. Louis, which is often counted as a county, will receive zilch from the 40 percent increase in federal highway funds. All of this increase will go to the state; none of it will make its way to the state's 114 courthouses.

This single decision flies in the face of knowledge that counties and cities have more miles of bridges than does the state -- and 47 percent of all local bridges have been judged structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. This compares to a 29 percent deficiency rating for state bridges.

The moral of this is that motorists would be better advised to travel state bridges rather than county spans.

But what does this say about Jefferson City's indifference to county needs and the state's unwillingness to share with local governments even its fundings increases?

One more example. Missouri's Constitution, as outdated an instrument of governance as any in the United States, at least equitably designates a share of the state's collection of motor vehicle sales taxes and licenses fees as belonging to counties. This is merely a recognition of the fact that cars travel over both state and county roads without regard to who must build and maintain them, thereby entitling local governments a share of these funds.

But when it became necessary to send an arbitrarily arrived at figure of the "surplus" state revenue to taxpayers under the fiat of the Hancock Amendment, state officials decided that counties should contribute to these refunds and withheld a portion of the amount collected for county distribution. This means that counties were made responsible for paying a portion of state government's Hancock payback requirements.

One question: Is the state responsible for its share of counties' obligations? Of course not. Then why are counties responsible for Jefferson City's obligations?

The state has long maintained that it had the right to obligate counties for state-assigned services and programs, and in countless examples, state employees have made decisions that obligated local governments to expend local tax revenue. A good example is Missouri's Public Defender System, whose employees are often provided space in publicly operated buildings, with the expenses of operating these offices to be borne by local governments. If these employees decide to move their offices elsewhere, these costs are paid by the state. Wrong! The costs are paid by your local taxes and by your county government. No questions asked; no appeals granted.

Uncle Sam has regularly made it a point to stick county governments with numerous costs from federal programs that may or may not be needed or even desired locally. In a four-year period (FY 1996-1999), Missouri's counties were handed a federally unfunded mandate bill of $35,026,814. It was pay up or we'll confiscate your bank accounts and courthouse. Even if all of this was needed, and that is certainly not clear, what constitutional paragraph gives Washington the right to charge federal programs to local taxpayers? None that we can find, nor do we see any provision for such debit service for state government in the Missouri Constitution of 1945.

This tale has no happy ending, nor much of a light at the end of the tunnel. Public anger will help. so will a new Constitution that stops his abominable buck passing.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.