Know Your Government

How local governments work

Sections of this page

Where local power comes from

Local governments are not sovereign: each is a political subdivision of its state. Under Dillon's Rule, named for an Iowa judge's 1868 opinion, a local government may exercise only the powers granted to it expressly, those necessarily or fairly implied in them, and those essential to its purposes. It still applies in many states. By the National Association of Counties' count, Dillon's Rule governs every county in 14 states, every county has home rule in 13, and the other 21 states with county governments mix the two.

Over the twentieth century many states adopted home rule instead, by constitution or by statute: a city or county, often one that adopts its own charter, may act on local matters without specific permission. In every state, though, the legislature can limit or override local ordinances, and state law generally prevails on matters of statewide concern.

Sources: National League of Cities: Cities 101, Delegation of Power; National Association of Counties: County Structure, Authority and Finances; National Association of Counties: County Government Primer (2024)

Counties

There were 3,031 county governments in 2022. Louisiana calls its counties parishes, and Alaska's organized boroughs are counted as counties. Connecticut (since 1960), Rhode Island and the District of Columbia have no county governments, and nine of Massachusetts's fourteen counties have none of their own: seven have no government at all, and Suffolk and Nantucket are governed together with Boston and the town of Nantucket.

Elsewhere, too, a county area can lack a county government. A city and county can be governed as one, as in San Francisco, Denver, Philadelphia and New York City, whose five boroughs are counties. Virginia's 38 independent cities, Baltimore, St. Louis and Carson City lie outside any county. Alaska's Unorganized Borough, the area outside its organized boroughs, has no borough government. Each state's county page says which of its county areas have no county government, and why.

Counties carry out state duties, such as running courthouses and jails, recording deeds, conducting elections and assessing property, and provide local services such as roads, public health and, outside cities, policing. They are governed in one of three main forms:

Form	Who makes policy	Who runs the county
Commission	An elected board of commissioners or supervisors, most often of three or five members	The board itself, its members often overseeing departments directly
Council–administrator or council–manager	An elected board or council	An administrator or manager the board appoints
Council–executive	An elected county council	An elected county executive or mayor, who can usually veto the council's ordinances

Officers elected in their own right

Many counties also elect officers who answer to the voters rather than to the board, under the state constitution or state law. Which offices exist, and whether they are elected, varies by state and sometimes by county:

Sheriff: Runs the county jail, serves court papers, secures the courthouse, and polices areas outside cities. Elected in 46 states. Alaska and Connecticut have no county sheriffs, and in Hawaii and Rhode Island sheriffs are state officers.
Prosecutor: Called the district attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney or county attorney. Prosecutes crimes under state law and advises county officials. Elected in 45 states. Alaska, Connecticut and New Jersey appoint theirs, and in Delaware and Rhode Island the elected attorney general prosecutes. In the District of Columbia most adult crimes are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney, and some by the District's elected attorney general.
Clerk or register of deeds: Records deeds, mortgages and other public documents, and in many states runs elections.
Treasurer: Collects property taxes and holds and invests the county's money, often passing tax revenue on to schools and other local governments.
Assessor: Sets the value of property for taxation.
Coroner or medical examiner: Investigates sudden, violent or unexplained deaths and certifies their cause. Autopsies are done by physicians, usually forensic pathologists; in most states a coroner need not be a physician.
Auditor or controller: Checks the county's accounts and approves its payments.

See it on this site: Every state's counties, on a map

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau: Government Organization Summary Report, 2022 and 2025; U.S. Census Bureau: 2022 Census of Governments, Individual State Descriptions; National Association of Counties: County Government Primer (2024); National Sheriffs' Association: FAQ; UNC School of Law: National Study of Prosecutor Elections, 2020 to 2024; D.C. Office of the Attorney General: Prosecution

Cities, towns and villages

Municipalities, called cities, towns, villages or boroughs depending on the state, are incorporated under state law to provide services such as police and fire protection, zoning, water and sewers, streets and parks. There were 19,491 in 2022. Most are governed in one of these forms:

Council–manager: The elected council, often with a mayor who chairs it, sets policy and the budget and appoints a professional manager to run the departments. It was the most common form in a 2018 survey by the International City/County Management Association: 48 percent of responding municipalities, against 38 percent for mayor–council.
Mayor–council, strong mayor: An elected mayor is the chief executive, appoints and removes department heads, proposes the budget and can veto the council. Common in the largest cities and in the smallest towns.
Mayor–council, weak mayor: The mayor chairs the council and represents the city, but the council holds most executive power and oversees the departments directly.
Commission: Voters elect commissioners who together act as the council, and each runs a department. Devised in Galveston, Texas, after the hurricane of 1900, and now uncommon: 3.2 percent of the municipalities in the same survey. Portland, Oregon, the largest city to keep it, replaced it with a mayor and a larger council on January 1, 2025.
Town meeting: In much of New England the town's voters meet, usually once a year, to adopt the budget and local laws, and an elected select board runs the town in between. Some towns elect members to a representative town meeting instead.

City officials

City manager or chief administrative officer: Runs the city day to day: its staff, budget, projects and services.
City attorney: The city's lawyer: handles its lawsuits, drafts ordinances and advises on zoning and liability.
Police and fire chiefs: Lead the police and fire departments; usually appointed.
Public works director: Runs the streets, storm drains, vehicles and often the water and sewer systems.
City clerk: Keeps the city's records and the council's minutes; in many places also handles local elections and campaign filings.

Many cities have a municipal court for violations of city ordinances, traffic and parking cases and, in some states, misdemeanors. Some use hearing officers to decide building, housing and health code cases instead.

See it on this site: Every state's cities and towns, on a map

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau: Government Organization Summary Report, 2022 and 2025; National League of Cities: Cities 101, Forms of Local Government; ICMA: 2018 Municipal Form of Government Survey; Handbook of Texas: Commission Form of City Government; City of Portland: Transition to the new form of government

Towns and townships

In 20 states, all in the Midwest and Northeast, the Census Bureau counts town or township governments below the county: Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin. There were 16,214 in 2022.

They range widely. In the Midwest a township may keep up rural roads and cemeteries, assess property and give aid to the poor, under an elected board of trustees or supervisors and a clerk. In New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, towns and townships can be full municipal governments, some serving dense suburbs.

See it on this site: Every state's local governments, counted

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau: 2022 Census of Governments, Individual State Descriptions; U.S. Census Bureau: Government Organization Summary Report, 2022 and 2025

School districts

There were 12,546 independent school districts in 2022: governments in their own right, each with an elected board that adopts the budget, sets the property tax rate where state law allows, and appoints a superintendent to run the schools.

Elsewhere the schools are run by a city, county or state government, and the Census Bureau counts them as part of that government, a dependent school system. Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland, North Carolina and the District of Columbia have only dependent systems. Virginia's public schools are dependent systems too; the one independent school district the Census Bureau counted there in 2022 is Eastern Virginia Medical School, in Norfolk.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau: Government Organization Summary Report, 2022 and 2025; U.S. Census Bureau: 2022 Census of Governments, Individual State Descriptions

Special districts

Special districts are the most numerous kind of local government: 39,555 in 2022, and 40,199 by 2025. Each is created under state law, often with a local vote, to provide one service or a few across a defined area, and many can levy taxes or charge fees and issue bonds.

Kind	Usually governed by	Run by	What it does
Transit authority	A board, often appointed by the governments it serves	A general manager or chief executive	Buses, subways and commuter rail across city and county lines
Water, sewer and utility district	An elected or appointed board	A general manager or chief engineer	Water supply, wastewater treatment, flood control, sometimes power
Port authority	A board appointed by the governments it serves	An executive director	Shipping terminals, and in some places airports, bridges and tunnels
Hospital district	An elected board of trustees	A hospital chief executive	Public hospitals and clinics, often paid for in part by a property tax
Fire district	An elected board of fire commissioners	A fire chief	Fire protection, rescue and emergency medical services

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau: Government Organization Summary Report, 2022 and 2025; U.S. Census Bureau: 2022 Census of Governments, Individual State Descriptions

Open meetings and public records

Every state has open-meetings and public-records laws, and they generally reach its local governments' councils and boards as well as the state's own agencies. What each law requires, and what it exempts, differs from state to state; the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press's Open Government Guide sets out each state's. Federal agencies' records are requested under the Freedom of Information Act instead (the executive branch).

Sources: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: Open Government Guide