Fiscal Aspects of State-Local Relations

Abstract

NOWHERE is the relation between state and local government more intimate and inextricable than in the realm of fiscal affairs. Nowhere has the flow of authority and supervision from a lower to a higher level of government been more rapid and widespread than with respect to fiscal affairs. There was a time when local services were supported largely, if not wholly, from local revenues; and when the major part of state revenue was even collected by local officials. It is true that the sources of local revenue have usually been determined by the state, and that fiscal officers in localities, such as assessors, collectors, and treasurers, have been prescribed by constitutional or statutory law; but within this framework the local authorities were originally free to move without restriction.1 That was the day of a simple agricultural society when governmental problems were few in number and simple in nature, and when each local governmental unit was essentially self-contained. Economic and social life was then organized largely on a local basis, and the functions of self-government were of local interest only. It is obvious that these conditions have long since passed. Just as economic, social, professional, and occupational interests have transcended local and, to a less extent, state lines, so governmental functions in response to these changes have come to concern wider and wider areas and larger and larger populations. Poor schooling in one district affects the character of life and citizenship in the state as a whole, thanks to modern mobility of population. The problems of public