What’s at Stake with Regionalism

Posted by on July 03, 2008

Here is the smartest analysis I've seen of "regionalism" and the way costs are divided over multiple municipalities, a city and a county.  It's from our colleague and member, Tom Jones, in Memphis. 

The Memphis City Council brought the issue of who pays for what to a head when they cut $70 million from the budget of Memphis City Schools.  The City of Memphis never had any obligation to fund schools. That's a Shelby County responsibility.  And that means Memphis taxpayers paid twice -- once as city taxpayers and again as county taxpayers.

School funding is the tip of the iceberg. As Tom points out, there are plenty of other examples of city taxpayers paying twice... in fact, as Tom puts it, paying for their own neighborhoods' demise.

Tom's blog, Smart City Memphis, is consistently one of the smartest around on local issues.