Via Mr. Combest, the Kansas City Star reports that Jackson County, Missouri (that’s Kansas City and suburbs, for you St. Louisans who have never been west of Party Cove) will be laying off employees in order to balance its budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders deserves credit for making the tough decisions to cut employees, and by extension the size of county government, instead of trying to raise taxes. I don’t mean to treat lightly the situation for the county employees who are losing their jobs, but Mr. Sanders’ first responsibility is to the taxpayers, not the government workers. As someone who has himself been laid off from a government job, I feel comfortable saying that.

I have long admired the overall government setup in Jackson County, as compared to St. Louis County.  It has far fewer suburbs (I think it’s 18, as opposed to 91), which are much larger, on average, than in St. Louis. That leads to much less duplication of services. St. Louis County could learn from that.