Summit County touts model of efficiency in governing

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For 30 years, Summit County in northeast Ohio has been an island unto its own — standing out like a governmental sore thumb among the 87 other counties in Ohio.

But in less than eight months, Cuyahoga County will become the second Ohio county after Summit to have an executive-district council format of government.

Russell Pry, Summit County's elected executive since July 13, 2007, said their form of government is more flexible and cost-effective than the traditional three county commissioner structure that also includes an elected auditor, treasurer, and recorder — three posts that are combined into a single elected official in Summit County.

“I would say everyone is having budget issues and with everything that is out there, as being the chief budgetary officer, you have one person versus three people, and it still presents interesting challenges,” Mr. Pry said. “We have the model that follows the city form of government with the chief executive with the legislative body.”

County departments under Mr. Pry's authority include: administrative services, communications, community and economic development, environmental services, finance and budget, human resources, insurance and risk management, job and family services, law, and the county medical examiner.

In Lucas County, there's a hodgepodge of different bureaucrats, elected officials, and even separate boards.

While Akron is a smaller city than Toledo, Summit County's population is 542,405 compared to the 463,493 people living in Lucas County.

But even with fewer people, Lucas County has a greater general fund budget, spends more money per of person, and has more employees per 1,000 residents.

The general fund in Summit County, with debt service included, totals $124.05 million, which breaks down to about $228.61 per county resident.

The general fund in Lucas County, with debt service included, totals $131.7 million, which breaks down to about $284.23 per county resident.

Summit County has 3,232 full-time employees in its 2010 budget and Mr. Pry said he anticipates no significant staffing level changes and a hiring freeze to remain in effect this year.

The ratio of full-time employees to every 1,000 people in Summit County had remained relatively flat over the last four years, but dropped to just below six employees per 1,000 county residents this year because of employee separations and a hiring freeze.

By comparison, Lucas County has 3,251 full-time employees, which means it has just slightly more than seven employees for every 1,000 residents.

Arguing for change

Those numbers support an argument by outgoing Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop, who is often at odds or in disagreement with other elected county leaders.

He says it's time for Lucas County to consider its own evolution, particularly the merging of the auditor, treasurer, and recorder.

“A classic example of why county government is a clunker is the lack of budgeting authority,” Mr. Konop said. “It's very hard to maneuver. It's very hard to change direction. It's very hard, and you have taxpayer dollars being wasted in the process.”

However, Lucas County Administrator Peter Ujvagi said it's not an apples-to-apples comparison to simply look at the bottom lines of the Lucas and Summit county budgets.

“Lucas County is the only county [in Ohio] that has countywide EMS that is funded through sales tax that goes through the general fund, and in Lucas County, that is $8.67 million in our general fund,” Mr. Ujvagi said. “The sheriff's department here is a cost of $33.2 million this year, and in Summit County it is $29.7 million.”

In Summit County, the sheriff's office has $5.6 million in outside contracts for the general fund for police services, while, the Lucas County sheriff, has just $852,887 in outside general fund contracts for his operation.

Summit County pays $5.5 million for its juvenile court while Lucas County pays $7.6 million.

“I don't know if there are more juvenile problems here, but that would not be changed with executive form of government,” Mr. Ujvagi said.

Not diving in

The other two Lucas County commissioners, Pete Gerken and Tina Skeldon Wozniak, said they're open to the discussion of governmental change, but neither wants to rush headlong into a change just to change.

“There is a certain value to the dynamic tension each elected official can bring rather than one elected official,” said Mr. Gerken, president of the board of commissioners.

“In Cuyahoga County, I think it came out of chaos,” he said. “The FBI was in most offices and people were fed up.”

On Nov. 3, Cuyahoga County voters approved Issue 6, which put control of the urban county of about 1.3 million people into the hands of an elected county executive — who has similar power to that of a mayor. It will also have 11 elected county councilmen, which is what Summit County has.

Voters in Cuyahoga County will continue to elect their own county prosecutor but unlike Lucas, they won't elect their own auditor, treasurer, sheriff, coroner, clerk of courts, recorder, or engineer.

It would also take a vote in Lucas County to change the form of government. Such a proposal could make it to the ballot with two votes of the board of county commissioners or by an initiative petition signed by about 14,000 registered voters in the county.

Summit County has an elected “fiscal officer,” which is a position created by merging the auditor, treasurer, and recorder over a number of years.

Lucas County leaders are watching the switch in Cuyahoga and studying the three decades of history already written in Summit County. But the kind of centralized power for a single county executive, or even the state's only county fiscal officer, seems like too much for some — especially those elected officials who could lose their jobs in a switch to a county executive form of government.

‘Checks and balances'

Lucas County Recorder Jeanine Perry said she is not comfortable with the Cuyahoga County model and is leery of the fiscal officer position used in Summit County.

“Some may view ‘row offices' here as overlapping,” Ms. Perry said, referring to the interactions of the recorder, auditor, and treasurer's offices.

“Some of us may see it as having checks and balances, especially when there are significant dollars involved.”

Lucas County Auditor Anita Lopez said the Ohio legislature established an elected fiscal officer for the counties because of the need for checks and balances.

“The auditor's office is there to be basically the hub for all that data and all that information. To give another elected official access to being able to write checks, [and] distribute checks to vendors, clearly there is an opportunity for fraud and crime,” Ms. Lopez said.

Ms. Lopez said she is planning to make county government more transparent to residents with a system for putting all checks written by the auditor online.

“It's essential the public see where their dollars are going and what it's going to be spent on,” Ms. Lopez said.Ms. Skeldon Wozniak said she is “completely comfortable” with looking for ways to make county government cheaper and more efficient — even if that means abolishing her own job.

“We have already responsibly downsized to keep taxpayer money safe and use it wisely,” she said. “But it is really important that we are smart in terms of making sure we have checks and balances … The treasurer invests our money and the auditor spends our money, and we don't want the same person doing the investments and the spending.”

Lucas County Treasurer Wade Kapszukiewicz agreed there should be “a discussion” about change, but he also wants to maintain the kind of accountability he said is ensured by keeping the “row offices” of county government, such as the treasurer, auditor, and recorder.

“I do think there is an important aspect of accountability that is best protected by having someone elected to a position,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. “If I was an appointed bureaucrat, I don't know if I would have the same motivation to save money.”

“We absolutely should pursue reform,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. “Just like in business, we should always look for ways to be more efficient and more lean, I think we have done that on the county side of the building.”

Both Mr. Kapszukiewicz and Mr. Gerken pointed out that among the county, the city of Toledo, and Toledo Public Schools, it has been Lucas County that has had a more stable budget while the other two are bleeding millions in red ink.

So why then make the county more like the city — which had a $48 million general fund budget this year? And if it's such a great idea like Mr. Pry in Summit County suggests, or the voters in Cuyahoga County hope it will be, then why haven't any of the other 86 Ohio counties made the change already?

Prior attempt

Andy Devine, a retired Lucas County Juvenile Court judge who was also a Lucas County commissioner, said his father gave him the answer to that question in the mid-1960s just after he had been to Toronto with a delegation to study how it became a metropolitan government by merging with surrounding communities.

“When I started this county home rule [effort], I went to my father, and he was then in his 80s, and I laid it out what I was going to do,” Mr. Devine said. “He said, ‘Sorry son, you are not going to do it.' He said ‘too many swivel chairs, too many kingdoms, too many people who can take the half-truths and make them believe it's the whole truth.'”

His efforts in 1966 to create a home rule charter for the county fell flat.

“I think you will find these row offices would be very much opposed,” Mr. Devine said of a county executive form government.

He is still a proponent of the so-called “unigov” approach and thinks discussion of county executive government is also a smart move.

“This is not going to be an easy thing,” Mr. Devine said. “I have some ideas on how you might be able to pull this thing off. I don't know of anyone who sees from within the need to [more] change than the people who served in these capacities.”

Even trickier switch

Unigov — which could consolidate city-county government as was done in Indianapolis — could be even more difficult than switching to executive county government.

Residents of Sylvania and Sylvania Township showed in November, 2008, that even those two closely related communities would not marry.

Almost 73 percent of township residents who voted on the issue said “no” to creating a merger commission.

Mr. Ujvagi, who was previously a state representative for the 47th District, said there has not been an overwhelming call for executive county government, but the discussion about unigov goes back decades.

“That could only occur if there is a level of trust between the governments out there,” he said. “There are a lot of imaginary lines when you think about the cities, villages, townships, school districts … and people don't want to get rid of those lines.”

Staff writer Tom Troy contributed to this report.

Contact Ignazio Messina at:imessina@theblade.comor 419-724-6171.