Jurisdictional Overlap and the Size of the Local Public Workforce

• Author: Christopher B. Goodman
• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X18774402
• Date: 01 March 2018
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• Subject Matter: General Interests

General Interest

Jurisdictional Overlap

and the Size of the

Local Public Workforce

Christopher B. Goodman

1

Abstract

The United States is a country of many overlapping local governments. Theoretical explorations of

the potential influence of this institutional arrangement abound; however, empirical evidence as the

influence of such an arrangement on local public sector remains relatively thin. Using a county-level

data set from 1972 to 2012, this overlap problem is explored. The results suggest that a positive

relationship between the jurisdictional overlap and the size of local public workforce amounting to

approximately a 1 percent increase in employment or an increase of less than one full-time

equivalent employee.

Keywords

public employment, Tiebout, interjurisdictional competition

Special districts are the most abundant and fast-

est growing kind of local government in the

United States. In 2012, special districts num-

bered more than 38,000. In addition to their

large numbers,the growth in special districtshas

been equally large, with an average annual rate

of growth of 1.9 percentsince 1952. Special dis-

tricts are increasingly “professionalized;” add-

ing full-time staff and providing services

similar to general-purpose local governments

(Stephens and Wikstrom 1998). Special districts

are unique in the U.S. system of local govern-

ments. Rather than having jurisdictional bound-

aries that abut, special districts are largely

overlapping. Unlike general-purpose govern-

ments, many overlapping governments provide

a variety of public services to a single popula-

tion. This institutional arrangement has the

potential to create a situation where the lack of

coordination between governments can lead to

a bias toward more local public employees.

Previous literature examines the role of

increased vertical layering of local government

on local revenues. Estimates of this “overlap

effect” suggest local revenues range between

5 percent and 25 percent higher than they

would be otherwise (Berry 2008). However, it

is equally likely that size of the local public

workforce may be larger than it would be with

one, composite local government. This analysis

extends the work of Berry (2008, 2009) to

examine this potential effect. This article

addresses the question of what the effect of

jurisdictional overlap of special districts is on

1

School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska

Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

Corresponding Author:

Christopher B. Goodman, University of Nebraska at

Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE 68182, USA.

Email: cbgoodman@unomaha.edu

State and Local GovernmentReview

2018, Vol. 50(1) 15-23

ªThe Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0160323X18774402

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