The County Conundrum

Does county government have a useful function anymore? Throughout the commonwealth the county form of government has gradually been phased out, and today only a handful of these white elephant governments remain. Dukes County is one. On the Vineyard county government has undergone evaluation twice in the past twenty years, and both times voters Islandwide agreed that it should continue, that its value as a regional government had the potential to be strengthened and broadened.

In fact the opposite has happened, and the strength of county government has been slowly eroding in recent years. The state has taken over the county courthouse, the registry of deeds and the sheriff’s department. The airport is largely independent, with its own commission and its own funding.

A recent report by the State Department of Revenue chronicled all these things, concluding that what’s left adds up to a mere handful of programs, among them health care access, rodent control and the animal shelter. Amid a blunt critique of the county’s poor budgeting practices through the years, the report recommends a change in the structure of county government.

So what to do?

The suggestion in the state report that the county commission be replaced by a council of selectmen who wear two hats as selectmen and county commissioners has merit and deserves more study and discussion. Selectmen could easily take on this function — they do it on Nantucket — and this could give the six Island towns more impetus to work together on matters of regional significance.

County government should not be allowed simply to languish and the time has clearly come to solve the conundrum.