Topeka ? Kansans like small government. In fact, they like lots of it, according to a state study released Wednesday.

Kansas has more local government units than all but the much more populous states of California, Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania, a report by the Legislative Division of Post Audit has found.

There are 3,887 governmental units dotted across Kansas, directing everything from counties and cities and schools to townships and cemeteries and drainage systems.

In 2002, the local governments levied $2.6 billion in property taxes.

And auditors said there were numerous opportunities to merge functions and services across governmental lines to avoid duplication and to save money.

But political turf battles prevent that from happening, they said.

“It’s a mindset out there that needs to be changed,” Joe Lawhon, one of the auditors, told lawmakers.

Douglas County fares well

The auditors focused on three counties — Douglas, Sedgwick and Dickinson. Douglas County is home to Lawrence; Sedgwick County, Wichita; Dickinson, Abilene.

The audit found “there’s been a lot of cooperation” between Lawrence and Douglas County in merging functions in public safety and even such areas as road maintenance, snow removal and repairs to park equipment. Lawrence and Douglas County also have a jointly staffed and funded Planning Office.

The audit also cited a good working relationship between County Administrator Craig Weinaug and Lawrence City Manager Mike Wildgen.

But Douglas County was the exception among those studied.

The audit found “minimal” cooperation between city and county officials in Sedgwick County and Wichita and Dickinson County and Abilene.

The auditors cited numerous instances where officials in those counties and cities refused to combine services, such as emergency dispatch systems and road-maintenance functions. In many of the cases, the cities and the counties were at odds with one another; for example, in Sedgwick County, Wichita and county officials are warring over annexation and water-rights issues.

Current system defended

Some lawmakers were suspicious of the audit’s findings.

State Rep. Dan Thimesch, D-Cheney, whose district covers western Sedgwick County, said the audit indicated that despite the high number of governmental units, Kansas ranked 15th out of the 38 states with a population of less than 7 million people in the per-capita cost of financing local governments.

“We’re really not doing that bad of a job financially,” Thimesch said.

Auditors conceded that reducing the number of districts may end up costing more because work that is now done by volunteers would be taken up by paid employees.

And many township officials said that abolishing local units of government would result in reduced or worse services.

A day’s ride

But auditors said that the numerous local governments grew out of outdated ideas about government from the late 1800s when it was thought the county courthouse should be no farther than a day’s ride on horseback from any place in the county.

But Lawhon stated, “You don’t have to ride your horse into town to pay your bills. We’ve progressed from what was needed.”

In the 1930s, more than 60 percent of the state’s population lived in rural areas served by township governments. Now, less than 30 percent of Kansans live in rural areas, but the number of townships is roughly the same.

The high number of governing jurisdictions has produced more than 7,000 “taxing” combinations that can cause vast disparities in what residents pay in property taxes to receive similar services in the same county, the audit said.

But Thimesch said the system ensured people in rural areas received services, such as road grading, at a reasonable cost.

“It was brilliant the way these forms of government were set up,” he said.

The audit was passed on to several legislative committees for review in the 2004 legislative session.