Abstract
In Germany, counties (Landkreise, Kreise) are administratively a cross between municipalities (Gemeinden) and states (Lander), except for city-states (Stadtstaaten). They are characterized by a sort of self-government on a regional scale, on the one hand and by lower-level government offices for national administration on the other. As about two-thirds of the total population inhabits municipalities within counties and only one-third inhabits non-county cities (kreisfreie Stadte), counties are very important in the regional administration of Germany. Due to limited financial resources of small municipalities, they have played an important role in the administrative system, especially in the period before the areal reform of municipalities that was conducted in West Germany between the latter half of the 1960s and the end of the 1970s. Even today, as self-governing bodies counties have various tasks of promoting the development of all or several municipalities within them and using their supplementing and balancing functions to support poor municipalities. In addition to these functions counties have state functions for administratively controlling their municipalities. Although both functions were originally different, they have overlapped. The majority of county revenues depend on payments (Kreisumlagen) from the municipalities within counties and tax money allocated to local governments (Schlussel-zuweisungen) by states. The former is decided in county parliaments (Kreistage) based on the financial demand of each county each fiscal year. Payment calculation methods are different in each state. In addition, payment ratios are also different in each county. In the new federal states with low taxable incomes, county receipts depend largely on many funds, such as the Osttransfer-fund, from federal states. Recently, serious financial problems have occurred in the counties of most states because of the increased number of responsibilities tranferred by states to counties without their financial support from the states. This brings not only pressure to the payment charged from the attached municipalities but also affects the enterprises located in counties. For most states, functional or areal reform of counties will be unavoidable. In addition, population decrease, innercity-suburban problems, arrangement of NUTS-2-regions in the European Union, and the use of electronic government are also factors stimulating county reform planning. These problems are especially serious for the new federal states because the funds will be abolished in 2019 despite the continuing population decreases. Compared to municipality reform, in which the concept of citizen nearness (Burgernahe) is very important, county reform is more easily conducted based on economies of scale and scope. As seen in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, there is a state proceeding with functional reforms and county mergers.
