It has expressed itself in recent years through accusations by State officials of mismanagement by the localities. This is given as a reason for the unwillingness to send unrestricted revenue to the localities. My preferred choice would be for the State to pay the total extraordinary human needs costs for those services it regulates. This would include city and regional jails, social services, Comprehensive Services Act expenditures, preventive medicine, and Community Services Boards. Because of the mismatch between revenue capacity and service burdens, simple quality of life issues often beg for attention.
Cities have to do their basic jobs right to retain the middle class.
Under present arrangements, cities must finance and manage not only the usual array of broad-based local services, but where necessary, offer critical services to the poor. These services are costly and they consume resources that make it harder to provide high quality educational and other services for the rest of the population. Because most cites cannot limit or determine their population mix, the particular profile of businesses and households that reside within their boundaries will determine whether or not the city is a desirable place to live. No longer should the well-being and service capacities of metropolitan localities be hostage to their economic, social, or demographic profiles. There are strong arguments that programs of income and health assistance, as well as poverty and child related social services, should be totally funded and managed at the State level, their benefits available to eligible households without regard to place of residence.