Is recent talk of city, county unity just that, or will it happen?

Quietly, at lunches and over coffee, on the phone and in person, Spartanburg city and county leaders have been talking about getting together.

They had talked about combining forces on the downtown airport for some time, and last week announced they would work together on a $15 million improvement project.

They have talked about the importance of downtown as a growth magnet for both entities, and both have funding stakes in the Chapman Cultural Center and Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium.

There is discussion about a joint services center that could replace City Hall, hold county functions and even include offices for the Spartanburg Water System and School District 7.

City Manager Mark Scott said these conversations have involved sewer and water General Manager Graham Rich, Housing Authority Executive Director Roy Johnson and representatives of School District 7, in addition to city and county representatives.

"We're all looking for ways to work together all the time," Scott said.

Talk heating up

But until recently, little of this talk had been public.

That changed a week ago when Mayor Bill Barnet, in a city council workshop, said, "At some point, if we cannot change the annexation laws, there is a way in the law to study consolidating with the county and creating a metropolitan taxing district, and I think we need to look at that."

Two days later, at a Spartanburg County Council meeting, Councilman David Britt interjected the same idea into a conversation about Sheriff's Office employees and why county government couldn't afford to give them the 10 percent pay raise Sheriff Chuck Wright requested.

Britt later said he looks at 15 local governments here -- the county government and that of 14 cities and towns -- and sees bringing those down to one as "the ultimate consolidation."

He sees efficiency in fewer people making the same decisions that would affect more people as opposed to the current setup, where more people spend time making decisions that affect fewer people.

What Barnet and Britt were talking about, what many people in power are thinking about, are two kinds of consolidation -- political and functional.

Consolidation: 2 types

The point of political consolidation is reducing the number of governmental agencies.

The city, stymied by difficult annexation laws, is searching for a way to make people who live in the metropolitan area but outside the city limits pay their share of the infrastructure Barnet believes enriches their lives.

The city argues its amenities are central to the lives of, if not all, many county residents, some of whom don't pay their fair share.

Those county residents, though, would likely lead the battle against full consolidation.

The point of functional consolidation is eliminating overlap of services, creating economies of scale and providing better, more consistent service.

Both are legal in South Carolina, but political consolidation, a difficult voyage through a minefield of confusing legislation and voter prerogatives, has never been accomplished in the state.

Functional consolidation, on the other hand, is going on in many parts of the state and receiving fairly high marks from those overseeing it.

The city and county have discussed sharing administrators before, though those conversations went nowhere.

But this is much larger than that, and has a much more tangible effect on people -- at least, on their bottom line.

If a political consolidation takes place, people in the city would likely pay less in taxes. People in the urban areas outside of a city limits -- Boiling Springs, for instance -- would likely pay more in taxes. In other words, if it looks like yo•live in a city, your property tax bill would look like it would if yo•lived in a city, too.

"I don't know how much support there is, and we haven't tried to determine how much support there is, because we're not necessarily pushing it at this point. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be valuable discussion," Assistant County Administrator Chris Story said.

'Share the Vision'

In 1997 a long-term strategic planning initiative called "Share the Vision" was created to look at how the city, and the region in general, could move forward. Share the Vision was incorporated into the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce in 2003.

Story, then-executive director for Share the Vision, was charged with studying city-county consolidation. Estimates showed about half the county population would pay more in taxes and half would pay less.

Story's study, now a bit outdated, estimates up to $100,000 would be necessary to fund a commission (for which public dollars could be used), and estimates the cost of a "Vote Yes" campaign to be between $100,000 and $250,000 (for which public dollars cannot be used).

Thus the complications build. Consolidation forces questions of identity, culture, race relations and quality of life into the discussion.

What is possible

"The easiest way for municipalities and counties to get together is to share services," said Joe Newton, executive director of the Appalachian Council of Governments. "Actually going from two entities to one is a very complicated, very awkward process. It's been considered in Cherokee, in Greenville and in a bunch of other places, and it always lost steam because it was so hard to do. But working together on specific tasks can and does happen."

So if it's so hard to unite, what can cities and counties do while remaining separate?

"We share one detention center and a joint engineering, planning and building inspection department," Greenwood City Manager Steve Brown said. "We've consolidated recreation, and we share an animal shelter. We have joint tax collection, consolidated emergency communications, joint data processing and a joint landfill."

Brown said the city and county were working together as early as 1967, but the bulk of the cooperation has come in the last 20 years.

"We've never really tabulated the savings, but we know for certain that the level of service has improved," Brown said.

In particular, he pointed to the one-stop-shop aspect of opening a new business, permitting a construction project and paying taxes as great advantages.

As for differences in city and county rules, Brown said, "Our zoning was almost identical, but then the city revised its code and made it stricter that the county's," Brown said. "It hasn't caused confusion, though, because it's the guys working with both who actually understand the exact differences in the rules."

What about just dropping the city/county separation and becoming one entity?

"At one time we did have a study committee, but with state legislation the way it is, it's almost impossible. Enthusiasm just waned," Brown said.

Council members' thoughts

In Spartanburg, city council members Linda Dogan and Robert Reeder have already raised objections. Both feel as if the county has burned them already.

"Right now, I'd say no," Reeder said. "The county has very different ideas about what kind of service needs people have than we do. We saw that with the parks, and until everyone is on the same track, I say no."

Dogan concurred, saying, "The county does not think of us the way we think of ourselves. We'll be a stepchild."

But Councilman Junie White said, "The only way we'll survive is to consolidate and think as one. I don't see a problem with studying it because our tax base is getting to be less and less."

On the county level, David Britt sees his job as selling the idea to his peers.

He is consolidation's most vocal advocate on County Council -- and the only member to publicly speak in favor of it. He's already talking with the new council members who will take office in January.

"It's a work in progress. There's a change that's getting ready to take place. The current council will not be making these decisions. This is a battleship in a creek. Yo•don't turn it around in a few weeks or a few months," Britt said.

In Cherokee County, an 18-member commission studied full consolidation, then imploded.

"Territoriality and turf issues came into it real fast, and it just died," said Cherokee County Councilman Bailey Humphries, a supporter of consolidation.

"So many things could be improved by this, but the municipality leaders (Blacksburg and Gaffney) did not want to be swallowed up and lose power, and neither did the water district and the fire districts. The sad thing is, while the leaders of all those groups are against consolidation, I think the citizens support it."

Even as political consolidation failed in Cherokee County, functional consolidation has crept in. The county houses prisoners for the municipalities, for a fee, and multi-government public works and recreation equipment-sharing deals are now being discussed.

Other roadblocks

In talks on political consolidation, it's easy to focus on the municipalities and the county, but they aren't always the sticking points. Special-purpose districts can be the real barriers.

"Yo•can't overstate how difficult it will be in terms of how cumbersome and complicated it is," Story said of Spartanburg County's numerous districts. "You've got 380-something different applicable property tax rates in the county. The volume is extraordinary of work that's got to be dealt with."

These districts can vote to opt out with consolidation still moving forward, but if too many of them choose not to join in, the push loses any real purpose.

"I live in a special-purpose district in Greenville, just for my neighborhood," Newton, of ACOG, said. "We pay for extra streetlights and an assigned policeman. Yo•can have a special-purpose district for just about anything, and they all can stand in the way of consolidation."

In most of Spartanburg County, firefighting rests entirely on fire companies, which exist in special-purpose districts. Each has its own equipment and hierarchy; each serves its own territory.

Creating a countywide firefighting entity would mean addressing all these companies.

Yet in Richland County and Columbia, firefighting is consolidated even though the governments are not.

"It started a little bit in 1984. The city got a contract to run two fire stations for the county," said Columbia Fire Department Chief Bradley Anderson, whose department protects the whole county. "But by 1990 we had a much more comprehensive contract that essentially merged the departments into one."

Anderson said he has not seen the figures on how much money has been saved, but he knows it's cheaper to run under one umbrella.

"We have maximized the economy of scale in purchasing, in human resources and in training," Anderson said. "In administration, the savings are evident. We only have one chief, to start with. Everyone's getting a better return on their investment, city and county."

A higher level of fire service exists in the city and a higher level of taxation is levied for it. Because of that, Anderson said there are sometimes small arguments about whether a piece of equipment was bought for city or county use.

Additionally, the number of volunteer firefighters has dropped dramatically in the county in the last 15 years. While the original plan called for 300, Anderson says he has about 100 now.

"We've hired a full-time volunteer coordinator to address that this year, but there's no doubt it's become an issue," Anderson said.

How much of the drop-off in volunteerism can be related to consolidation, no one can really say.

What if it doesn't work?

One question people might ask here is, "What happens if we try it and it doesn't work?"

In Greenwood, the answer precluded the question.

"It has to work, and it has to work well," Greenwood's Brown said. "My job is to make it happen. If I had to go back to splitting just zoning, planning and engineering, it would cost the city $500,000-$750,000 a year."

As for how it worked in the beginning, Brown said, "I did have a lot of people, employees, who didn't want to do things with the county… and they just had to go. I am committed to not letting anyone here damage this relationship that's working so well because if it went bad we'd be back where we were 25 years ago, and we can't afford that."

And Brown's advice to cities and counties looking to begin a consolidation?

"So many want to begin with a huge consolidation project that will never fly. Start small. We started with a $2,000 maintenance agreement on sewer pipes, and today we split countless functions because we built trust."

Lane Filler can be reached at 562-7426 or lane.filler@shj.com.