New York counties started as entities established by the State Legislature to carry out specified functions at the local level on behalf of the state. During the 20th century, county government in New York underwent major changes in function, form and basic nature.

The counties in New York are no longer merely subdivisions of the state that primarily exist to perform state functions. The county is now a municipal corporation with geographical jurisdiction, home rule powers and the fiscal capacity to provide a wide range of services to its residents. To some extent, counties have evolved into a form of “regional” government that performs specified functions and which encompasses, but does not necessarily supersede, the jurisdiction of the cities, towns and villages within its borders.

New York State outside New York City is divided into 57 counties. The five boroughs of the City of New York function as counties for certain purposes, although they are not organized as such nor do they operate as county governments. Unless otherwise indicated, references to counties in this chapter will apply only to those outside New York City. Counties in New York are diverse in population and demographics. The 2010 Census populations of the counties vary from Suffolk County’s 1,493,350 to Hamilton County’s 4,836. St. Lawrence County is the largest in geographical area, with over 2,700 square miles, and Rockland is the smallest, with an area of 175 square miles. The most densely populated county is Nassau County with more than 4,700 people per square mile, and the most sparsely populated is Hamilton County, with fewer than 3 people per square mile. The population of New York’s counties is shown in New York State Counties ^[1] and New York City Boroughs/Counties.

Of the state’s 57 counties outside New York City, 21 contain no cities. All counties include towns and villages, although the number of each varies widely. For example, St. Lawrence, Cattaraugus and Steuben counties each contain 32 towns, while there are only three towns in Nassau County. Hamilton and Warren counties each contain one village to the 64 villages within Nassau County.

The foregoing statistics demonstrates that not all counties in New York State are alike. The State of New York has some of the most urban and rural counties in the nation, and the interests, concerns and governmental expectations of their residents are similarly diverse.

The patterns of county government organization in New York were set in colonial times. The “Duke’s Laws” of 1665 created “ridings,” or judicial districts, which were in effect a system of embryonic counties. In 1683, an act of the first Assembly of the Colony established the first 12 counties — adding 2 to the 10 which had previously come into existence — and created the office of sheriff in each county. These original counties were Albany, Cornwall, Dukes, Duchess, Kings, New York, Orange, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk, Ulster, and Westchester. Cornwall and Dukes were deemed part of Massachusetts after 1691. County legislative bodies began at the same time, when freeholders, later known as supervisors, were elected to represent each town in the establishment of tax rates to defray the costs of county government, including the operation of a court house and a jail.

The reasons for the creation of county governments in the early colonial period appear to have been practical: to improve protection against enemies and to provide a more broadly based mechanism for maintaining law and order. The first duties of county government lay in these functional areas. The sheriffs in the first counties were appointed by the Governor and could serve only one term. The first State Constitution in 1777, which designated counties, towns and cities as the only units of local government, recognized the existence of 14 counties that had been established earlier by the colonial Assembly. Two of those counties were ceded to Vermont in 1790 in the settlement of the New Hampshire land-grant controversy. All of New York’s other 50 counties were created by acts of the State Legislature. The state’s newest county, Bronx, was established in 1914.

The basic composition of the counties was set in 1788 when the State Legislature divided all of the existing counties into towns. Towns, of course, were of earlier origin, but in that year they acquired a new legal status as components of the counties.

Throughout the nineteenth century, additional counties were created, usually when an area contained approximately 1,000 residents. New counties were typically formed out of existing counties, some of which originally covered vast geographical areas.

The basic changes in form, powers and functions, which the counties in New York have been undergoing, have been hastened and facilitated by three major developments:

While county government still must perform as an administrative arm of state government for many purposes, at the same time it must be an independent unit of government exercising powers of its own to meet demands.

As the population spilled out from the central cities of the metropolitan areas, the towns and the counties occupying the periphery had to take on a wide range of new functions, services and duties. As a result, the forms and procedures of county government changed to meet the needs of the metropolitan areas. At the same time, however, the old forms of county government, which largely reflected rural needs and county functions as state administrative units, were retained in areas where they were still appropriate. Even in the latter case, however, it has proven convenient for the state to use the counties in new ways for new purposes in carrying out new state programs and objectives.

At the present time, most New Yorkers live in counties that are now considered urban because of their population or proximity to a major city. Some counties are marginally urban because of their economic orientation and because people journey to work from those counties to larger metropolitan centers that may be some distance away. This very fact, however, lends an urban aura to those counties even though their primary activities may still have rural characteristics.

One of the developments that has facilitated the changing nature of county government in New York has been the provision of general law authority for counties to draft and adopt home rule charters by local initiative and action.

Most of the counties of the state still operate, as they did in the past, under the general provisions of the New York State County Law. Even these counties have certain latitude under state law to develop their own organizational structures and to provide for the administration of their services. In fact, a majority of the counties that operate under the County Law have a county administrator or comparable position.

Any county, regardless of size, may gain a much wider scope for local initiative and action through the adoption of a county charter. Charter Counties in New York State lists the 23 charter counties in New York and the year of adoption of their current charter.

The spread of the county charter movement in New York has been a relatively recent phenomenon. In 1937, the Legislature enacted an Optional County Government Law which broadened the scope of local choice as to organization and form. By the early 1950’s only three counties — Nassau, Monroe and Westchester — had organized under optional or special charters granted by the State Legislature. Because of the counties indifferent response to this form, in 1952 the Legislature repealed the Optional County Government Law and enacted the Alternative County Government Law, which extended to the counties a choice of four optional alternative forms of government organization. However, no county utilized the provisions of this law. In 1958, Suffolk County was granted an alternative form of county government by special state legislation.

An amendment to the State Constitution in 1959 provided the necessary constitutional basis for locally developed and adopted charters. With the implementing statutes enacted by the State Legislature, the amendment enabled counties to adopt charters that could supersede the governmental structures provided in the County Law. The response was immediate; Erie County in 1959 was the first to adopt its own charter under the new law. In 1961, Oneida and Onondaga Counties followed. Enactment in 1963 of the Municipal Home Rule Law, to which the County Charter Law provisions were transferred, further facilitated the reorganization by charter of county governments. Since that change, the number of counties operating under charters has increased to 23. One of these counties — Herkimer — chose only to reapportion the county legislative body through the county charter method and left intact the organizational arrangements provided under the County Law.

Four organizational elements exist in some form and in varying degrees among all counties, both charter and non-charter. These are: (1) a form of executive or administrative authority, either separate from or as a part of legislative authority; (2) a legislative body; (3) an administrative structure; and (4) certain elective or appointed officers who carry out specific optional duties and functions.

At the beginning of this chapter we noted that the principal reasons for creating county governments in the colonial period were to facilitate the defense of the community against enemies and to maintain public order.

With the establishment of state government, the counties provided an already existing and readily available administrative unit through which the state could carry out a number of its functions and duties. To do this, the counties found themselves keeping records on behalf of the state, enforcing state laws and conducting elections for the state, among other state-assigned functions. In New York, as in other states, the prevailing view saw county government as an arm of state government, serving state purposes.

It is doubtful that many residents of the counties of New York ever fully shared this assessment of the nature of the county. The people of the counties appear to have felt from earliest times that the county, like the city, the town and the village, was one of “their” local governments, even though it may have performed duties for the state.

The recent fundamental changes in the nature and form of county government in New York have in some ways brought the legal concept of a county closer in line with the concept held by most of the counties’ inhabitants. The impetus for this merger of the de jure with the de facto probably sprang from the rapidly expanding demands for services, which were stimulated by population growth and urbanization, which often could not be supplied by the towns, cities, and villages.

The functions of county government at the beginning of the twenty-first century scarcely resemble those of colonial times, although the county still enforces laws and maintains order. In 1980, total expenditures by county government in New York amounted to $5.5 billion. By 2010, this amount had grown to over $23.1 billion. To see what counties are doing today and to illustrate the demands now being placed on county government, it is useful to examine how county government spends its money. <<county_expenditure_trends_table>> shows the dollar amount and percent distribution of major expenditures for all counties for 1980 and 2010.

SOURCE: Office of the New York State Comptroller

Economic assistance, which includes social services programs such as Medicaid and Aid to Dependent Children, remains the largest category of expenditure for county government. However, the share of the distribution of expenditure for this category has declined as expenditures in other categories have increased and accounting for Medicaid expenditures has changed. In 1980, county expenditures for Medicaid reflected the entire cost of the program (counties paid the full cost and were then reimbursed from state and federal sources). In 2003, however, county medical expenditures reflect only the county contribution (roughly 25 per cent of total Medicaid costs), making comparisons between these years difficult. The greatest percentage of growth in dollar terms has been in the education category, which includes the counties’ obligation to pay for the education of pre-school special education children as well as the costs of providing community college education to county residents. Police and public safety has also experienced significant growth and expenditures accounting for the cost of operating a jail in addition to the expenses of a sheriff’s department, plus probation and rehabilitation services. General government includes staffing and administrative costs of county officials, the district attorney, public defenders, maintenance of buildings and other central operations.

A significant change in voting systems was made with the implementation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which required that voting machines and voting systems used in all states meet minimum performance standards, and for the uniform administration of the electoral process, from voter registration to the casting of the ballot. New York State Election Law, Article 7, in part, implements HAVA. One important change is the transfer of ownership of voting systems from each of New York’s cities, towns, and villages to each respective County Board of Elections. Prior to this statutory change, with only several exceptions, voting machines were owned by local municipalities. In the federal election of November 2000, there were 15,571 election districts in New York State. With the exception of voters in approximately 60 election districts, the balance of the state’s voters voted on one of the 19,843 lever machines in use at that time. Central count voting systems are owned by the county boards of elections, and are used to count absentee and affidavit optical scan or punch card ballots. In compliance with HAVA, the State Legislature banned punch card absentee systems in 2005, which resulted in the use of a single technology (optical scan system) certified for use in New York. At present, the majority of county boards in the state use central count op-scan central count voting systems.

In 2006, compliance with HAVA and an implementing Federal Court order required the placement of at least one such ballot marking device in each county, though counties could provide more access than just a single device for their entire county. The State Board of Elections certified five ballot marking devices to serve as an interim compliance solution to provide access for voters with disabilities, while New York’s efforts at obtaining certification for HAVA-compliant voting systems and ballot marking devices continued. Today, all county boards of elections have implemented certified transparent, accurate and verifiable optical scan poll site voting systems and ballot marking devices throughout the state’s 15,005 election districts.

Article 9, section 1(h)(l) of the State Constitution authorizes alternative forms of county government to transfer functions or duties from one unit of local government to another, subject to referenda approval. Any such transfer, whether included in a proposed county charter or charter amendment, or by local law through procedures set forth in section 33-a of the Municipal Home Rule Law, must be approved by separate majorities in the area of the county outside the cities, and in all cities in the county, if any, “considered as one unit.” In addition, if a function or duty is transferred to or from any village, the transfer must also be approved by a majority of voters in all villages so affected, again “considered as one unit.”

In many cases, counties have assumed new activities without formal transfer of the function. So long as the county has power to engage in a specific activity — the provision of parks, for example — it often does so at the same time that cities, towns and villages undertake similar activity. This power of the local units to carry out the same activity presents local taxpayers with recurring policy questions regarding which units can perform each service best and at least cost. In many cases cities have urged counties to assume activities, such as oversight of parks, zoos, civic centers and the like, not only to spread the cost more equitably, since all county residents are likely to use such facilities, but also because the county has greater ability to finance such activities.

Although the counties still carry out, in one way or another, their original functions and duties, they also have taken on a vast array of new ones. As a result, county governments in New York have had to adapt so that they can provide and finance these services for all the cities, towns and villages within their jurisdiction.

County government has been strengthened as a unit between the cities, towns and villages on the one hand and the state government on the other. The State Legislature and the people of the state have made it possible, through the Constitution and statutes, for the counties to restructure themselves, if they choose, to provide the executive and administrative leadership, the administrative organization and the operational procedures required meeting new demands.

In urban areas, the counties are now major providers of services, and it appears likely that county government will continue to assume new responsibilities.