Connecticut may not have county governments ”” for good or ill, depending on one”™s viewpoint ”” but a recent decision by the U.S. Census Bureau means that it will have county equivalents. And that, said Francis Pickering, executive director of the Western Connecticut Council of Governments (WestCOG), is a good thing.
“There are a little over 3,000 counties in the United States and most of them have their own government,” he told the Business Journal. “But we haven”™t had them since the General Assembly got rid of them in 1960 and they weren”™t working that well before then.”
First established in 1666, the Nutmeg State”™s eight county governments were fairly weak, operating without direct taxing authority and funded primarily through state and local taxes. By 1960 they were essentially only authorized to oversee and maintain their county jails.
Instead, Connecticut went with 15 regional councils of government (COGs), which were reduced in 2014 to the current nine. As is the case with WestCOG, none are named for a specific county, as they are intended to represent a geographic region. Thus does WestCOG”™s 18 members include the mayors or first selectmen of Bridgewater and New Milford ”” both in Litchfield County ”” but not Bridgeport, Easton, Fairfield, Monroe, Stratford and Trumbull (which belong to the Metro Council of Governments or MetroCOG), or Shelton (part of the Naugatuck Valley COG).
“We all benefit from regular collaboration,” Pickering said, “and the state recognizes our value. Over time they”™ve given us more authority.”
The COGs of today are involved with everything from economic, environmental and transportation planning to involvement with emergency services, land use, public safety and animal control issues.
All of which is impressive ”” except, historically, to the federal government.
“Everything is done at the county level in D.C.,” Pickering said, “which puts Connecticut at a structural disadvantage.”
As an example, he pointed to the $362 billion Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund, which included $65.1 billion in direct aid to counties. Technically, no county governments means no federal money, but Pickering credits the state”™s congressional delegation with helping to get a “workaround,” which resulted in the state”™s eight counties receiving $692.5 million ”” led by Fairfield County”™s $183.2 million.
“But we couldn”™t count on that” going forward, Pickering said. Instead, the state successfully petitioned the U.S. Census Bureau to establish county equivalent geographic units “for (the) purposes of collecting, tabulating, and disseminating statistical data.”
Such statistical data is part of the calculus in determining how much a given county ”” or equivalent ”” may receive in the form of federal grants and the like. “We are no longer invisible to the eyes of the federal government,” Pickering said.
The move should also help address a longstanding fact: Connecticut pays more per person to the federal government via income, payroll, corporate and excise taxes than it gets back in funding, making for a $1,614 per-person deficit, according to the Rockefeller Institute.
Pickering noted that Texas ”” larger than Connecticut by most measures, including with its 254 counties ”” operates at a $673 per-person surplus.
While he has praise for the state”™s Congressional delegation, Pickering said Connecticut simply does not have the clout in D.C. that such states as Texas, California, Florida and New York have.
However, he said, the county equivalent should help address such discrepancies.
He added that, for the average citizen, no changes will be apparent: There are no new taxes involved; home rule, local control, and Connecticut”™s municipalities”™ relationships with federal, state and regional governments will remain unchanged; no amendments are being made to either state or federal law; and it does not represent a return to the much-dreaded county governments.
However, Pickering noted, Connecticut”™s prospective windfall will not arrive until 2023, when the county equivalent designation officially takes effect.
