Was the consolidation of the Kansas City, Kansas, and Wyandotte County governments a success?
   It’s the sort of question that only historians and academics can truly answer, after a number of years have elapsed.
   Now a new academic book, “City-County Consolidation: Promises Made, Promises Kept?” answers the question for Wyandotte County in the affirmative. The book was written by several authors and published by Georgetown University Press, and is available at www.amazon.com. Its publication date is Sept. 15.
   Suzanne Leland, an associate professor in political science at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, offers a chapter on the Wyandotte County-Kansas City, Kansas, consolidation. She and Kurt Thurmaier, a professor at Northern Illinois University who formerly taught at the University of Kansas, are the editors of the book. Leland and other contributors compared cities which consolidated to cities which did not to assess whether efficiency and effectiveness was increased, and whether promises were kept to the voters. 
   The promises made to voters here were that no individual would lose a job because of consolidation and that taxes would decrease. Both promises were kept during the time covered by the study, Leland said. Total jobs decreased with attrition, and the property tax rates were lowered.
   Leland said earlier this week that she believes consolidation here was successful. In her study, Wyandotte County was compared to the Shawnee County and Topeka area, where the idea of consolidation was talked about, but not approved. The study looked at 10 years before and 10 years after consolidation.
   While Wyandotte County lagged behind Shawnee County in retail sales, population growth and other factors, over time Wyandotte County began to grow, and that gap became narrower, following consolidation, Leland said. The study showed more efficiency for government since the consolidation.
   “After consolidation and landing of the NASCAR track, there has been a turnaround,” Leland said.
   The study was done with pre-recession numbers, and the book took about five years to complete. It doesn’t include any information about the most recent tax rate changes.
   For the other cities in the study, there wasn’t an overall pattern of efficiency gains, Leland said. Few cities – there are nine in the study – have actually tried consolidation.
   Why haven’t more cities and counties attempted consolidation?
   “It’s politically very difficult,” Leland said. “It’s probably the most radical reform you can have undertaken at the local level.”
   The entire structure of government needs to be redesigned, and many officials fear losing their positions in the realignment. She said that Wyandotte County implemented the consolidation very well, using attrition to eliminate the duplicated positions.
   Leland, who received her doctorate from the University of Kansas, worked on the Consolidation Study Commission here as a researcher from 1996 to 1997. Passage of a state law allowed the community to work on consolidation in a public format, and 60 percent of the community voted for its passage in 1987. The effort passed because of the support of the business community, Realtors, and many of the politicians, she said.
   Public opinion surveys done by the Mid-America Regional Council in 1989-1991 and in 2000 showed that citizens in Wyandotte County had a more favorable opinion of the local government after consolidation, she added.
   The book comes at a particularly good time, as discussion of consolidation is picking up in other cities.
   “This is the time when a lot of cities and counties are looking at ways to save money,” Leland said. “Everyone’s facing these tremendous financial stresses right now.”
   To reach Mary Rupert, managing editor, e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .