Local Government Complexity: Consequences for County Property-Tax and Debt Policies

This article examines the consequences of local government complexity on county revenue decisions in fourteen Texas counties comprising the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metropolitan areas. There are significant differences in the configuration of local governments in the two areas traceable to when cities, school districts, and special districts were created. County revenue decisions are also affected by the different configuration of governments in the two areas. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom that states create local governments. Local choices are instrumental in shaping local government complexity. What government-types are chosen, and when, produce distinctive patterns of governance from one metropolitan area to the next, even in the same state. Consequently, reforms aimed at making the county the “local government of the future” would require perhaps insurmountable changes in state and local structures