First, I would like to say thanks to all the people who read my first article. These will be coming about once every two weeks.

The idea was to spark conversation about consolidated government, looking at it from the perspective of the County just absorbing the City and getting to consolidated government by default.

A surprising number of people don’t know that we once had Clarksville City Schools and Montgomery County Schools operating with two different school systems. In April 1963, Mayor Charles W. Crow and County Judge William O. Beach appointed a 10-member commission to study “school consolidation.” And thus began the consolidation of the biggest and most expensive operation in either local government.

Just for perspective, the CMCSS annual operating budget this year is $278 million. The City of Clarksville’s current budget is $77 million. CMCSS has 3,900 employees. The City has 989 employees. CMCSS is about 4 times the operation of the City both in dollars and employees. It is important to note that once the two school systems were consolidated, the new consolidated system fell under the ongoing governance of the County. While CMCSS does have a school board making many operational decisions, the responsibility for funding the schools and the cost of growth lands squarely at the County Courthouse.

I see no reason why the same couldn’t be true for each and every other department. I don’t know of any big clamoring to go back to two school systems. CMCSS is not perfect, but I haven’t come across perfect yet. But they are a far cry better than many other systems and they have done it as a consolidated system.

Do the citizens really need both a Highway Department and a Street Department, for example? Where is the value in that? Is there really a reason why those functions couldn’t be merged next year? I find it hard to believe that we could consolidate the biggest, most expensive and perhaps most important function of our governments and yet we have to have two Codes Departments?

I think our two current Mayors should follow the lead of two previous visionary leaders and form a commission to study just what departments and functions could be merged even if it is just one at a time.

Merry Christmas