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Connecticut shares with the five other New England states a governmental structure known as the New England town. From 1666 to 1960, Connecticut had a system of county governments, which each had limited powers given to it by the General Assembly. They were abolished by Public Act 152 in 1960. Connecticut also had a system of sheriffs' offices until October 2000, when those were also abolished.
Connecticut is divided geographically into eight counties, but these counties do not have any associated government structure. The Connecticut General Assembly abolished all county governments on October 1, 1960. [1] The counties continued to have sheriffs until 2000, when the sheriffs' offices were abolished and replaced with state marshals through a ballot measure attached to the 2000 presidential election. Today, counties serve as little more than boundaries for the state's judicial and state marshal system. Connecticut's court jurisdictions still adhere to the old county boundaries, with the exception of Fairfield, Hartford, and New Haven counties, which have been further subdivided into multiple court jurisdictions due to their relatively large populations.
From 1666 to 1960, "weak" county governments existed in Connecticut, where each county commission had limited powers delegated to it by the General Assembly. Each county had a 3-member County Commission, whose members were appointed by the General Assembly; plus a Sheriff who was elected by the voters in each county. Initially, county governments had authority over:
County governments had no direct taxing authority; their funding was provided indirectly through set-asides from state and local taxes. During the first half of the 20th century, county governments were gradually phased out as the General Assembly transitioned powers from the county commissions to either the state government or to individual towns. By the time county governments were abolished by Public Act 152 in 1960, the only remaining responsibility of the county commissions was to oversee and maintain the county jails; those functions were transitioned to the state Department of Corrections or local police departments after the county commissions were disbanded.
In the 1980s the legislature establishing fifteen regional councils, which cluster towns with similar demographics into an administrative planning region, instead of adhering to the old county structure. In 2014 the number of planning regions was reduced from the original fifteen to nine, as a result of four voluntary consolidations and the elimination of two planning regions.
As of 2015, the State of Connecticut recognized COGs as county equivalents, allowing them to apply for funding and grants made available to county governments in other states. In 2019 the state recommended to the United States Census Bureau that the nine Councils of Governments replace counties for statistical purposes. [2] This proposal was approved by the Census Bureau in 2022, and will be fully implemented by 2024. [3]
| Population | Council of governments (COG) | Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) [4] |
|---|---|---|
| 973,959 | Capitol Region | (Same) |
| 318,004 | CT Metropolitan | Greater Bridgeport and Valley MPO |
| 175,685 | Lower CT River Valley | (Same) |
| 448,738 | Naugatuck Valley | Central Naugatuck MPO |
| 96,617 | Northeast CT | (Same/Rural Planning Region) |
| 115,247 | Northwest Hills | (Same/Rural Planning Region) |
| 570,001 | South Central | (Same) |
| 286,711 | Southeastern CT | (Same) |
| 589,135 | Western CT | South Western CT MPO & Housatonic Valley MPO |
Unlike most other states outside of New England, where incorporated cities and towns are usually separated by unincorporated territory under the jurisdiction of a county, incorporated cities and towns encompass all of the territory within the state of Connecticut with no portion of the state being unincorporated. The 169 towns of Connecticut are the principal units of local government in the state and have full municipal powers including:
Towns are officially creatures of the state, and their powers are set forth by statute and the state constitution. In practice, as is the case in most of New England, their authority has been very broadly construed, and there is a long-standing tradition of local autonomy.
Towns traditionally had the town meeting form of government, which is still used by some of the 169 towns. Under Connecticut's Home Rule Act, any town is permitted to adopt its own local charter and choose its own structure of government. The three basic structures of municipal government used in the state, with variations from place to place, are the selectman–town meeting, mayor–council, and manager–council. [5]
Nineteen towns are also incorporated as cities; one town, (Naugatuck) is also incorporated as a borough.
A town may consolidate with a city or borough that is coextensive with it. The 20 consolidated borough-towns and city-towns are classified by the Census Bureau as both minor civil divisions and incorporated places, while the other 149 towns are classified only as minor civil divisions. Some of the larger, urban towns are also classified in their entirety as census-designated places.
All cities in Connecticut are dependent municipalities, meaning they are located within and subordinate to a town. However, except for one, all currently existing cities in Connecticut are consolidated with their parent town. Towns in Connecticut are allowed to adopt a city form of government without the need to re-incorporate as a city. Connecticut state law also makes no distinction between a consolidated town-city and a regular town.
There are currently twenty incorporated cities in Connecticut. Nineteen of these cities are coextensive with their towns, with the city and town governments also consolidated. One incorporated city (Groton) has jurisdiction over only part of its town. All cities are treated by the Census Bureau as incorporated places regardless of the settlement pattern.
In addition to cities, Connecticut also has a type of dependent municipality known as a borough. Boroughs are usually the populated center of a town that decided to incorporate in order to have more responsive local government. When a borough is formed, it is still part of and dependent on its town. There are currently nine incorporated boroughs in Connecticut. One borough is coextensive and consolidated with its town. The other eight boroughs have jurisdiction over only a part of their town. All boroughs are treated by the Census Bureau as incorporated places. Since 1989, the Census Bureau has also listed Groton Long Point as a borough even though it has not been incorporated as a borough but is only a multi-purpose special services district within the town of Groton.
Connecticut also has a fair number of non-incorporated communities that are known locally as villages (usually in more rural areas), neighborhoods or "sections of" a city or town. "Villages" in this local Connecticut sense have no separate legal/corporate existence from the town they are in, although a taxing district or volunteer fire department sharing the name of the village may exist for specific services. With some exceptions, people who reside within a village often identify with the town rather than the village. Some villages and named sections of towns and cities were formerly incorporated as boroughs. Some villages are associated with historic districts which can serve to preserve some part of their more historically well preserved areas.
Some village and section names are also used as post office names or as the basis for naming census-designated places (CDPs), although the postal delivery area or CDP associated with the name often is considerably larger than the associated village or section. Some examples of villages, neighborhoods, and sections that have given their names to post offices or CDPs are Falls Village, Mystic, Niantic, Quaker Hill, South Kent, Stafford Springs, and Whitneyville. [6]
Unlike a dependent city or borough, special tax districts are not general purpose governments, but instead provide additional services to a portion of a town that are not necessarily available to residents outside the district. Examples of services provided include police and fire protection, maintenance of roads or public recreation facilities, or to provide various utilities. A special tax district has the right under Connecticut law to levy taxes on real estate and personal property within its borders. This tax is in addition to any taxes owed to parent town. It is formed when residents of the proposed district petition to create the district and successfully vote at public meeting or referendum to create the district; it cannot be unilaterally dissolved by the parent town. A special service district may also provide the same types of services, but is instead created by ordinance from the parent town. It is provided with revenue either from the municipality's general budget, or by a tax imposed by the host municipality on property within the district. [7] [8] In several Connecticut towns, special tax districts are the legal successor to boroughs or cities that consolidated with the parent town.
Connecticut has numerous specially chartered quasi-public state agencies that operate outside of the executive branch of the state government. These organization provide either statewide or regional services. They are created to provide flexibility of administration, avoiding many of the regulations that public agencies are subject to. Such agencies are organized under CGS § 1-120(1). [9] [10] Examples include the Capital Region Development Authority, which provides loans and grants to support private development in and around Hartford, CT or the Connecticut Lottery Corporation, which oversees lottery gaming in the state.
List of Connecticut quasi-public agencies: [11]
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes in some modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French comté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount. Literal equivalents in other languages, derived from the equivalent of "count", are now seldom used officially, including comté, contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, and zhupa in Slavic languages; terms equivalent to 'commune' or 'community' are now often instead used.
New London County is in the southeastern corner of Connecticut and comprises the Norwich-New London, Connecticut Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Hartford-East Hartford, Connecticut Combined Statistical Area. There is no county government and no county seat, as is the case with all eight of Connecticut's counties; towns are responsible for all local government activities, including fire and rescue, snow removal, and schools.
In the United States, a county or county equivalent is an administrative or political subdivision of a state that consists of a geographic region with specific boundaries and usually some level of governmental authority. The term "county" is used in 48 states, while Louisiana and Alaska have functionally equivalent subdivisions called parishes and boroughs, respectively. The specific governmental powers of counties vary widely between the states, with many providing some level of services to civil townships, municipalities, and unincorporated areas. Certain municipalities are in multiple counties; New York City is uniquely partitioned into five counties, referred to at the city government level as boroughs. Some municipalities have consolidated with their county government to form consolidated city-counties, or have been legally separated from counties altogether to form independent cities. Conversely, those counties in Connecticut, Rhode Island, eight of Massachusetts's 14 counties, and Alaska's Unorganized Borough have no government power, existing only as geographic distinctions.
In United States local government, a consolidated city-county is formed when one or more cities and their surrounding county merge into one unified jurisdiction. As such it has the governmental powers of both a municipal corporation and an administrative division of a state.
A minor civil division (MCD) is a term used by the United States Census Bureau for primary governmental and/or administrative divisions of a county or county-equivalent, typically a municipal government such as a city, town, or civil township. MCDs are used for statistical purposes by the Census Bureau, and do not necessarily represent the primary form of local government. They range from non-governing geographical survey areas to municipalities with weak or strong powers of self-government. Some states with large unincorporated areas give substantial powers to counties; others have smaller or larger incorporated entities with governmental powers that are smaller than the MCD level chosen by the Census.
A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary or secondary schools or both in various nations.
A civil township is a widely used unit of local government in the United States that is subordinate to a county, most often in the northern and midwestern parts of the country. The term town is used in New England, New York, and Wisconsin to refer to the equivalent of the civil township in these states; Minnesota uses "town" officially but often uses it and "township" interchangeably. Specific responsibilities and the degree of autonomy vary in each state. Civil townships are distinct from survey townships, but in states that have both, the boundaries often coincide and may completely geographically subdivide a county. The U.S. Census Bureau classifies civil townships as minor civil divisions. Currently, there are 20 states with civil townships.
The administrative divisions of New York are the various units of government that provide local services in the U.S. State of New York. The state is divided into boroughs, counties, cities, towns, and villages. They are municipal corporations, chartered (created) by the New York State Legislature, as under the New York State Constitution the only body that can create governmental units is the state. All of them have their own governments, sometimes with no paid employees, that provide local services. Centers of population that are not incorporated and have no government or local services are designated hamlets. Whether a municipality is defined as a borough, city, town, or village is determined not by population or land area, but rather on the form of government selected by the residents and approved by the New York State Legislature. Each type of local government is granted specific home rule powers by the New York State Constitution. There are still occasional changes as a village becomes a city, or a village dissolves, each of which requires legislative action. New York also has various corporate entities that provide local services and have their own administrative structures (governments), such as school and fire districts. These are not found in all counties.
A township in some states of the United States is a small geographic area.
Most U.S. states and territories have at least two tiers of local government: counties and municipalities. Louisiana uses the term parish and Alaska uses the term borough for what the U.S. Census Bureau terms county equivalents in those states. Civil townships or towns are used as subdivisions of a county in 20 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.
A borough in some U.S. states is a unit of local government or other administrative division below the level of the state. The term is currently used in six states:
The town is the basic unit of local government and local division of state authority in the six New England states. Most other U.S. states lack a direct counterpart to the New England town. New England towns overlay the entire area of a state, similar to civil townships in other states where they exist, but they are fully functioning municipal corporations, possessing powers similar to cities and counties in other states. New Jersey's system of equally powerful townships, boroughs, towns, and cities is the system which is most similar to that of New England. New England towns are often governed by a town meeting legislative body. The great majority of municipal corporations in New England are based on the town model; there, statutory forms based on the concept of a compact populated place are uncommon, though elsewhere in the U.S. they are prevalent. County government in New England states is typically weak at best, and in some states nonexistent. Connecticut, for example, has no county governments, nor does Rhode Island. Both of those states retain counties only as geographic subdivisions with no governmental authority, while Massachusetts has abolished eight of fourteen county governments so far. Counties serve mostly as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems and some other state services in the southern New England states, while providing varying services in the more sparsely populated three northern New England states.
The administrative divisions of Wisconsin include counties, cities, villages and towns. In Wisconsin, all of these are units of general-purpose local government. There are also a number of special-purpose districts formed to handle regional concerns, such as school districts.
The administrative divisions of Virginia are the areas into which the Commonwealth of Virginia, a U.S. state, is divided for political and administrative purposes. Some are local governments; others are not. However, all local governments are political subdivisions of the state.
Local government in New Jersey is composed of counties and municipalities. Local jurisdictions in New Jersey differ from those in some other states because every square foot of the state is part of exactly one municipality; each of the 564 municipalities is in exactly one county; and each of the 21 counties has more than one municipality. New Jersey has no independent cities, or consolidated city-counties.
Local government in Pennsylvania is government below the state level in Pennsylvania. There are six types of local governments listed in the Pennsylvania Constitution: county, township, borough, town, city, and school district. All of Pennsylvania is included in one of the state's 67 counties, which are in total subdivided into 2,560 municipalities. There are currently no independent cities or unincorporated territories within Pennsylvania. There is only one incorporated town in Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg.
In the United States, an independent city is a city that is not in the territory of any county or counties and is considered a primary administrative division of its state. Independent cities are classified by the United States Census Bureau as "county equivalents" and may also have similar governmental powers to a consolidated city-county. However, in the case of a consolidated city-county, a city and a county were merged into a unified jurisdiction in which the county at least nominally exists to this day, whereas an independent city was legally separated from any county or merged with a county that simultaneously ceased to exist even in name.
The administrative divisions of Ohio are counties, municipalities, townships, special districts, and school districts.
