the five counties. As a matter of fact, the City Government should have complete control over these counties and this should have been provided in the Home Rule amendment. It is interesting to note in connection with the general agreement as to what is wrong with our county government that these conclusions have been reached irrespective of politics. Republicans and Democrats in the Constitutional Convention of 1915 agreed on it. The Republicans and the Democrats on the special Committee on Taxation and Retrenchment agreed on the subject. Governor Miller in his message to the Legislature of 1922 said that the county government amendment applying to Westchester and Nassau was needed in every county of the State. There are further evidences on this subject. Heads of departments in the State Government have repeatedly called my attention to all sorts of defects in county, town and village government, and have stated that it is the weakest, most ineffective and most wasteful part of the whole government machinery. The Health Commissioner has frequently complained about the inadequate small health districts of the villages and towns and has stated that there should be a county health unit. Practically all of the health experts and organizations agree with him. The charity and welfare authorities make similar complaints. The public works and highway authorities tell me that the town roads are a disgrace, that they cannot possibly stand up under the pounding of present-day traffic, and that a good part of the State aid given to the towns is thrown away. They point to the town bridges on State highways recently taken over by the State as an illustration of what happens when a matter which has become regional or State-wide is left to local people with inadequate funds and local ideas of economy to take care of. Members of the bar, especially in the larger and more populous counties, have repeatedly stated that the present Justice of the Peace system under which a county like Westchester has seventysix lay Justices is a farce in these days. It was all right and may today still be useful in very thinly settled counties where there are few cases and few lawyers, and where a local man of standing, even if he has no legal training, can well take care of the small matters that come up from day to day. In the larger counties, with complicated problems and plenty of people trained in the law, and with the factor of distance completely minimized by modern conditions of travel, a small, full-time circuit court of real Judges is the obvious remedy. The members of the Tax Commission and tax experts unanimously agree that our local tax system in the towns, counties and villages is a good deal of a joke. The county and town tax system, which also provides for the State and school tax, and the tax for special districts, is unscientific, inequitable and wasteful, where it is not worse. Numerous part-time, unqualified tax collectors with all kinds of views as to assessment are attempting to assess property of tremendous value without any proper central county control. The village tax system, which is entirely independent of the county and town system, is often based on totally different theories of assessment, and the actual assessment for a single piece of property by a village and by the town in which it is located often varies greatly. Similarly tax authorities point out that local tax collections should be consolidated and proper records maintained. It is certainly a ridiculous thing that in order to change the present system under which there are three elected town assessors and to substitute a single paid town assessor or a county board of assessors it is necessary to amend the State Constitution. One of the most ridiculous things in government is to read the reports of the State Tax Commission and find that local tax assessors, who are required by law to assess for full value and to take an oath that they have done so, actually assess in many cases for 20 and 30 per cent. of the value, with the result that in the more obvious cases which can be discovered the State Tax Commission has to attempt to make the necessary readjustments. It appears that the manual of instructions for assessors issued by the State Tax Department is a good deal of a joke to the local town and village assessors. The Joint Committee on Taxation and Retrenchment in 1923 pointed out one interesting little case of a village which had grown little in population or improvement and in two years increased its assessments from less than $100,000 to over $1,700,000. The reasons for the increase are not known. The interesting fact is that in the same two years the town assessments for an area vastly greater and including the village remained stationary at about $1,000,000. It is also an interesting fact that practically all tax authorities agree that city assessments are fairly scientifically and accurately made and are based on a substantial percentage of true value. The State Commission on Housing and Regional Planning has pointed out to me the absence of anything like adequate county planning throughout the State. At the present time there is not a single county planning and zoning board and only the beginning of a town planning system. Half a dozen department heads and State officials have pointed out to me repeatedly the lack of any understanding of the problem of public improvements in most of the larger counties. Westchester, which has undertaken a great highway, parkway and sewer and water system for the whole county, is an exception. In most of the larger counties where there are more or less villages and more or less unincorporated territory local authorities seem to have no idea of cooperating on vital problems, involving such matters as water supply and sewage and garbage disposal. There have been recent cases, for example, on Long Island where the Health Commissioner has had to step in under the State Health law to force the local officials to establish proper disposal plants. Delay in laying out trunk sewers is bound to end in a great menace to public health, and ultimately means enormously increased cost in tearing up streets and other improvements to provide these facilities. As long as the village Governments are strong and the town and county Governments are weak and inadequate, we shall not have our counties planned intelligently. Every student who has ever given this problem any consideration at all agrees that there must be some kind of a proper county executive, whether it be an elected county President or a county manager serving under a small county board. The countyBoards of Supervisors in this State in most cases have entirely too many members. Some of them have over fifty. How can a Board of Supervisors of sixty or fifty or even thirty members carry on the executive work of a county? The county supervisors are elected from towns and wards, and none of them represents the county as a whole. This mixing up of legislative and executive functions has never been successful anywhere. It is agreed that many town funetions must be transferred to the county and that a reasonably long term for the executive should be established. It is also agreed that the same changes which are now being made in the State Government looking to the consolidation of departments, appointment of department heads by the county executive, reduction in the number of elective offices and a real county budget system are assential in all of the large and growing counties of the State. There is a growing conviction that there are too many counties and that there are certain counties which should be consolidated It has also been repeatedly recommended that counties should cooperate in the administration of certain joint enterprises, such as tuberculosis hospitals, county jails or farms, &c. Most of the recommendations previously made for the improvement of county government have laid emphasis on immediate economy; that is, savings through internal reorganization or consolidation. I think this is unfortunate. The economies to be obtained in this way are the great ultimate economies, not to be measured in immediate cuts in the budget. They are the economies which result from making plans in advance and from having the right kind of organization to carry them out. They are the savings which result from preventing ultimate waste. I am much more interested in seeing the local government of this State organized to meet the problems of the future than I am to show that through some recommendation of mine there may be a saving of a few hundred dollars in jobs or in purchasing supplies, desirable as these economies may be. You now have before you the report of the State Reorganization Commission, headed by Governor Hughes. This commission has practically completed its work on the State Government. It included competent and public-spirited people. Its Vice Chairman was the Chairman of the County Government Committee of the Constitutional Convention. This commission would have available to it reports and studies on county, town and village government referred to above, which have been made since the convention of 1915. I renew my recommendation that you continue this commission for the single purpose of making a study of county and town government, and that in the meantime you adopt a constitutional amendment making the reorganization of county, town and village government possible, to the end that the recommendations of this commission may be promptly put into effect. The amendment proposed in 1915 by the Constitutional Convention would clear the way, and there should be included in this amendment also a provision permitting the consolidation of county governments, with the approval of the counties affected, and a provision giving the city authorities of the City of New York control over the counties within the city. An amendment of this kind will shortly be presented for your consideration. ALFRED E. SMITH. 168. COUNTY HOME RULE The most common proposal for the reorganization of county government is that for "home rule." The constitutions of a very few states contain provisions permitting such county home rule. Of these the California provisions, adopted in 1911, are the most detailed and comprehensive in their scope, and under them several counties have adopted home rule charters. In New York, the constitution was amended in 1921 to permit reorganization and home rule in the two counties of Westchester and Nassau, these being populous suburban counties on the outskirts of New York City, and thus having special problems of government. Under the terms of this amendment, a county charter for Westchester County was submitted to the voters of that region in 1927, but was defeated by a small majority. a. County Home Rule in California [Constitution of California, Art. XI, Sec. 74, in Constitution of the SEC. 74. Any county may frame a charter for its own government consistent with and subject to the Constitution (or, having framed such a charter, may frame a new one), and relating to matters authorized by provisions of the Constitution, by causing a board of fifteen freeholders, who have been for at least five years qualified electors thereof, to be elected by the qualified electors of said county, at a general or special election. Said board of freeholders may be so elected in pursuance of an ordinance adopted by the vote of three fifths of all the members of the board of supervisors of such county, declaring that the public interest requires the election of such board for the purpose of preparing and proposing a charter for said county, or in pursuance of a petition of qualified electors of said county as hereinafter provided. Such petition, signed by fifteen per centum of the qualified electors of said county, computed upon the total number of votes cast therein for all candidates for Governor at the last preceding general election at which a Governor was elected, praying for the election of a board of fifteen freeholders to prepare and propose a charter for said county, may be filed in the office of the county clerk. If... it shall appear that said petition is signed by the requisite number of qualified eleetors, said clerk shall immediately present said petition to the board of supervisors, if it be in session, otherwise at its next regular meeting after the date of such certificate. Upon the adoption of such ordinance, or the presentation of such petition, ... |