What are the roles and responsibilities of city and county when they are the same? (crime, Philadelphia)

[RobertFisher]

In most cases a county is bigger than a city, so I suppose there are unincorporated areas and inter-city business for county governments to look after.

But in a situation where county=city, such as the city and county of San Francisco, or when city is bigger than the county, such as NYC covering 5 counties, what does the county government do that the city does not already cover?

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by RobertFisher

In most cases a county is bigger than a city, so I suppose there are unincorporated areas and inter-city business for county governments to look after.

But in a situation where county=city, such as the city and county of San Francisco, or when city is bigger than the county, such as NYC covering 5 counties, what does the county government do that the city does not already cover?

Usually, the city and county governments are one and the same in consolidated city-counties, even those post-1961 ones where already existing municipalities at the time of consolidation retain some degree of sovereignty (Indianapolis and Marion County, Ind. the first of these, formed in 1961; Kansas City and Wyandotte County, Kan.; Lousiville and Jefferson County, Ky.; local school districts in most of these newer consolidated city-counties). Ergo, there's no separate "county" government, and how the government is styled depends on the state (and sometimes on when the consolidation took place).

For example: In California, cities have mayors and City Councils while counties are run by five-member Boards of Supervisors. San Francisco City and County has the latter, not the former, which technically makes it a "county" government, but its charter provides for a hybrid of sorts: a mayor (a city position) and an eleven-member Board of Supervisors (in other counties in the state, this is also the executive as well as the legislature). In Pennsylvania, non-home-rule counties (which have county councils and county executives) are run by three-person County Commissions, while cities and boroughs have councils and mayors. What happened in Philadelphia was that the mayor and City Council assumed the functions of the county government save that of running elections, which was left in the hands of what are now called the City Commissioners.

But other county-level offices and functions often remain:

In most states, subordinate state courts are a county function. In the case of the City of New York, they would be the one "county" function not handled by the city government. In most consolidated city-counties, the chief county prosecutor - the district attorney or state's attorney for the county - is also a "county" office.

State public welfare offices are also organized on a county basis in most states. But since those are run by the state directly, the local government has no real jurisdiction over them.

Prisons housing inmates convicted of crimes under local or county ordinances and laws are another function usually handled by counties, but how they're run varies from state to state. In the City and County of Philadelphia, a "county" officer - the sheriff - runs the prison system. There is no separate "sheriff's patrol," however: the city Police Department is the sole law enforcement agency.

Generally speaking, the county functions are rolled into the combined city-county government: registration of deeds and wills, road maintenance, things like that.

[engineman]

The size of the county makes a difference too. Arizona has only 15 counties, and Florida has 67. They are different in size.

In Jacksonville they merged the city and county governments. Jacksonville Police is also the Duval county Sheriff.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by engineman

The size of the county makes a difference too. Arizona has only 15 counties, and Florida has 67. They are different in size.

In Jacksonville they merged the city and county governments. Jacksonville Police is also the Duval county Sheriff.

Actually, I think the character of the county makes more of a difference than the size: all of the consolidated city-counties are urban. City-county consolidation is the 20th-century equivalent of the municipal annexations that happened in a bunch of East Coast and Midwest cities (though oddly enough, the first city-county consolidation in the country took place in 1854, when the 33 or so municipalities in Philadelphia County became one with the City of Philadelphia). Consolidation is a means of capturing a city's growth beyond its existing boundaries.

And the laws governing their powers vary from state to state. In most states, cities can annex land, but counties cannot, and consolidated city-counties are treated as counties when it comes to that subject. One notable exception is the City and County of Denver in Colorado, which did retain annexation powers; the city now covers parts of five surrounding counties, and every time Denver annexed land, the county the land was taken from shrank a little. This led to a state law being passed in the mid-1990s that severely restricted consolidated city-counties' powers of annexation.