NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State
University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
May 14, 1998
As population drains from the plains of North Dakota, the frontier virtue of joining together to solve problems may be gaining strength.
A new study from the State Data Center at North Dakota State University indicates that a majority of North Dakota residents don't like the quality of their county services and haven't for five years—and that a majority believe the way to deal with the situation is to consolidate county and town services.
"Dissatisfaction with county services is everywhere, in rural and urban areas alike," says Richard Rathge, director of the State Data Center. "Fifty-five percent of North Dakotans rate the quality of county services as below average or poor—and this isn't a new complaint. In fact, 68 percent of North Dakotans say the quality of county services hasn't changed significantly in the past five years."
What to do?
According to the study, more than 63 percent of residents feel counties can combine services without a decline in service quality.
And a whopping 88 percent of this group—or about 55 percent of all the people surveyed—suggest that the way to go about keeping services while reducing expenses is to consolidate resources, county with county or county with city.
"The view that services can be combined without losing quality is stronger among people living in large urban centers, where about 69 percent agree with it, than among people living in rural counties, where only 43 percent agree," says Rathge. "But remarkably, there is consistency among people everywhere in favoring consolidation of services. They recognize that North Dakota's population is just too small and that present services are therefore too expensive. People in rural areas, however, understand that in their situation the consolidation process will cause some loss in quality."
Opinions in rural and urban areas differ on the question of which governments should link up. People in rural areas favor combining counties with counties. People in urban areas favor combining county and city services.
"People in larger urban centers tend to think the best plan is to combine city services with county services," says Rathge. "People living in very rural areas recognize it's not going to make a whole lot of sense to combine county and city, because they're still too small. So their preference is to combine counties with counties."
Rathge believes that consolidation is an answer whose time may have come.
"I believe," he says, "that the level of dissatisfaction with county services in North Dakota, together with wide recognition that services may be combined with minimum reduction in quality, means that an important window of opportunity has opened for making changes by consolidating services."
Of 10 county services included in the survey, the one rated highest for quality was rural road construction and maintenance. This was followed by property tax administration, economic development, economic assistance for the poor, child welfare services, court administration, local law enforcement, social services for the elderly and disabled, agricultural extension services and property ownership record keeping.
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Source: Richard Rathge (701) 231-8621
Editor: Barry Brissman (701) 231-7866