Missouri has a lot of government entities, something voters will catch a glimpse of April 7 when they elect governing boards for cities, school districts, road districts, county hospitals and fire districts.

In total, the state has 3,723 government units ranging from the Missouri Legislature to small road districts. That is the eighth-highest total in the United States, a recent study from the Show Me Institute reports. The report calculates that Missouri has one governing unit per 1,579 people, the 12th-highest in the nation.

The Show Me Institute is a conservative-libertarian think tank that frequently assesses Missouri government from a low-tax, smaller government point of view.

In the report, researcher David Stokes explores the key question those numbers raise -- does the high number of government entities result in burdensome, inefficient government that wastes money or does it help taxpayers by keeping government close to the people and in touch with their needs?

His conclusion, Stokes said in an interview, is that there is a little bit of both. There are some places where mergers or other steps could make sense, such as combining school districts, some third-class counties or by cutting the size of the Missouri House of Representatives to 101 members from 163.

Some Southeast Missouri leaders, however, said some of Stokes' arguments for efficiencies through mergers and other steps aren't necessarily in the public interest.

"Our reason for being here is the same as it was then," said Ralph Phillips, district engineer of the Cape Special Road District, referring to the district's founding in 1912. "We are constantly improving our roads over the years. We started out with gravel roads, and now we are almost all paved roads."

Stokes acknowledges governments don't always gain efficiency along with size.

"Economies of scale can be exploited in larger governments ... but the efficiencies and benefits of larger government are less common and less significant than often supposed," Stoke wrote. "The assumption that larger, less fragmented government is a more capable and efficient provider of services does not stand up to initial analysis and is not supported by the research."

"There is definitely evidence that a smaller, fragmented government can work," Stokes said in an interview. "It doesn't have to be as inefficient as possible."

In his report, Stokes points to school districts as an area where mergers could have benefits. There are 536 school districts in Missouri. Smaller districts could benefit by merger through expanded educational opportunities that include more specialized teachers. But increased travel times could offset the benefits by increasing costs, he noted.

In the Nell Holcomb School District, where a little more than 300 students attend kindergarten through ninth grade, a smaller district means a smaller class size, a more responsive school board and a strong community identity, superintendent Darryl Pannier said.

"You have two different environments when you talk about small-school USA versus large-school USA," Pannier said. "It would be sticker shock" for parents and taxpayers, he said, "if we were incorporated into a large community, whether it is Cape or Jackson."

Stokes said the key limiting factor on school consolidation is transportation. Both the costs of long bus routes and the time students spend commuting to school should be considered, he said.

"There are better test scores and better education in larger districts," he said. "The benefits increase until they are too large geographically because of the cost of transportation."

One of 295

The Cape Special Road District is one of 295 such entities in the state, the most for any state in the nation. The district covers the southeast third of the county surrounding Cape Girardeau and maintains about 10 miles of roads within city limits.

Unlike most, the road district is no longer supported by a property tax. Instead, it receives a share of a countywide sales tax equal to what a property tax would generate. Phillips said it would be hard to find a more efficient operation. He is the only office employee.

The road district was formed to build up the areas immediately adjacent to Cape Girardeau, in part to prepare them for the growth of the city. The boundaries have been expanded once, sometime around 1950, since it was formed 97 years ago, Phillips said.

The district is still doing that job, he said. The district has targeted 20 bridges, many with wooden substructures and load limits as low as 8 tons, for replacement. If the district were absorbed by the county highway department, priorities for using the district money could change, he said.

"Our function is still the same," Phillips said. "The roads have been improved over the years as much as they can with the funds we have."

One specific statewide proposal from Stokes' report is to reduce the size of the Missouri House. Stokes notes political economists have developed a mathematical formula showing that larger legislatures lead to more spending. But a follow-up study shows that the extra spending seems to be tied to larger state senates, and Missouri's is a medium-sized Senate that helps control spending.

But reducing the Missouri House could, in salaries alone, save $1 million annually, he reports.

Cutting the size of the Missouri House isn't a new idea. In 1992, an effort championed by Gov. John Ashcroft was set for a statewide vote before the Missouri Supreme Court stepped in. The court blocked the measure, saying that combining legislative reform with a government ethics package put too many questions before voters in one proposal.

The House doesn't seem too large, said freshman state Rep. Clint Tracy, R-Cape Girardeau. Cutting the number of lawmakers would increase the size of each constituency from about 36,000 to about 58,000. More lawmakers mean representation that is more reflective of the people, Tracy said.

"You can't take the same wide brushstroke," Tracy said. "The things city folks need are not the same things that rural folks need."

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent addresses:

120 Warson Drive, Cape Girardeau, MO

6547 State Highway 177, Cape Girardeau, MO