The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-03-07
City Manager Plan Evils of Political Government Extend From Town to County - Correction of This Evil Next Step in Expansion of City
 Manager Form of Government.

Extension of the city manager plan of government to include the county in which the town or city is located is the next and logical step in the expansion of the move ment. Growing evils of county gov- ernment are cited in this the ninth of series of articles explaining purpose of the plan.
 ARTICLE TX
 The Manager Plan Is Remaking
 Local G0vernment-
 Counties Need Managers Too
 Although the manager plan has in it the possibility of solving all the chief problems ever faced by a city government. there is one problem a city manager city in itself cannot wipe out. That is the county in which it is situated.
 It may seem odd to call 8 county a problem. But 1t is unfortunately true. Badly managed as many of our cities were before they adopted the manager plan, most of them were governmental models compared with the three thousand odd Ameri- can counties today.
 A county is a form of government so old as to be almost entirely un- suited to modern governmental con- ditions. Usually it has no executive head at all, great numbers of elected administrative officers, and a very large unwieldly legislative body. It is an ideal hiding place for graft and corruption. Politicians who have been put out of the cities which adopted the manager plan need not look far for an ideal refuge-the county.
 Voters ordinarily pay little atten- tion to counties because their inter est is centered in city government. Therefore politicians find it easy to have elected to those numerous county administrative offices people who are friendly to the machine. Then, with no one to check up on the activities of the county as a whole, they can spend tax money al- most as they please. It is practically impossible to fix responsibility for extravagant government because no one individual is ever responsible. And even if blame could be fastened on an individual, 1t is long time be- tween elections.
 Job of County Important
 Now a county has important gov ernmental functions, even though voters usually ignore them. In the southern states counties are most important, since they are health, education and welfare units. In some of the northeastern states counties are of least importance, since they are only judicial districts and no more. But as general rule counties do have a variety of vital functions. They have charge of building and maintaining certain roads, maintain certain public institutions like hos pitals, asylums and jails, often dis pense unemployment relief, have charge of parks and recreational centers, collect some taxes, and keep records. All these functions cost money, and the county raises money the way the city does-from taxes.
 But the same people pay taxes to the county and to the city. No mat ter how efficient a city manager city is, if the county in the same area is wasteful, people will still pay high taxes to pay for the county's ndis- cretions. Moreover, when the county renders poor service, the city more often than not undeservedly gets the blame. Thus many city manager cit- ies have found counties serious en- barrassment to their good work.
 There is-only one way to clean out this last refuge of the old political methods. That is. to do for the county what was done for ATT cities; adopt the manager plan.
 A number of American counties have already done so, and have thereby made municipal history, for it is the first time that counties have had an executive head.
 The county manager plan is just like the city manager plan. A small legislative body is given all policy making powers. It chooses a trained manager who has the job of trans lating policy into administration, and thus of hiring his subordinates The legislative body can fire him at any time. Gone are the numbers of petty emperors who were formerly elected administratorsl Gone is the shambling. uncoordinated govern