By Eleanor Boudreau
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-926347.mp3
Memphis, TN – A measure to merge Memphis and Shelby County governments will be on the ballot November 2nd.
Nationwide consolidated governments are rare and lonely. Out of 3,069 county governments in the United States, only 35--or about one percent--are consolidated.
"It would be really difficult to say in sort of a general sense--is consolidation good or bad? It's so driven on a case by case basis," said Pat Hardy a Municipal Management Consultant with the Institute for Public Service at the University of Tennessee.
A number of years ago, Hardy says, a city called him and wanted to know about the pros and cons of consolidation, so he started looking into it.
"I was actually quite surprised. I had mounds and mounds of articles that I had found about consolidation, but I would guess probably 90 percent of them were opinion. They weren't backed by hard research," Hardy said.
Hardy has spent years compiling the hard data about metro governments. He says when you're considering whether one government is better than two, you have to look at three criteria: efficiency, improved citizen satisfaction with services, and an improved economic edge.
"And you couldn't draw a general conclusion from all of that criteria," Hardy said.
Hardy says greater efficiency under consolidation hasn't been demonstrated through research.
"That's not to say it's not out there. It just has not been shown through the empirical research," Hardy said.
Service satisfaction is a mixed bag. A study done in Nashville showed citizens were less happy with some services under consolidation, and more happy with others.
And finally--the big talking point here in Shelby County--attracting more businesses. Hardy says that's also a mixed bag. He says studies have shown that consolidation did not help enhance the economic development of Metro Jacksonville and Duval County, Florida, but did help Indianapolis.
But the most interesting thing Hardy found is this--across the country most measures to merge city and county governments have failed at the ballot box, but they haven't failed by much.
There has been an average of 47 percent support for consolidation across the country.
"People tend to be on the cusp about it," Hardy said. "Just a few more percentage points the other way and we would have a much greater number of consolidated jurisdictions across the country."