Good government depends on coordination. When that coordination breaks down, even well-intentioned efforts start working against one another. Across Catawba County, schools, agencies, and development boards all strive to serve the public, yet too often they do it separately. Overlapping systems and competing priorities have turned cooperation into a challenge of its own. The Cost of Control examines how fragmentation, duplication, and competing jurisdictions make progress harder than it should be—and how stronger alignment could save both money and momentum.
🏛️ The Price of Fragmentation: When Governance Becomes Competition
This area’s governmental institutions can stifle progress because a lack of coordination and communication leads to fragmentation—and there are too many centers of command. Every major system in Catawba County, from schools to planning boards, operates inside its own walls with its own objectives. Instead of cooperation, we see duplication: three public school districts with three administrations; overlapping development boards with different recruitment goals; and local agencies that plan the same projects in isolation.
What was meant to provide checks and balances has turned into competition for money, credit, and control. The result is slow decision-making, wasted resources, and a community that keeps having the same conversations and processes year after year. The Cost of Control examines how fragmentation in governance has become a very expensive habit—and why real progress will require leaders willing to give up turf before the community can generate momentum. This is supposed to be the people’s government, not the government’s government.
🧩 Built to Divide: How Patchwork Governance Took Hold
This structure didn’t appear overnight. It evolved over decades through a pattern of patchwork fixes and political compromises. Each time a new problem surfaced—school crowding, industrial decline, downtown stagnation—leaders created another board, authority, or special committee to put a face on the issue. But none of these entities were ever consolidated or decommissioned after their purported purpose was served.
The result is a maze of overlapping offices that each claim progress while operating in isolation. Instead of streamlining systems, local government keeps adding more layers to promote its supposed importance to economic and cultural activity. What began as attempts to solve problems gradually built a structure that now resists solutions.
Nowhere is this fragmentation more visible—or more expensive—than in public education. Catawba County operates three separate school systems: Hickory City Schools, Newton-Conover, and Catawba County Schools. Each maintains its own superintendent, administrative staff, and support services, all paid for by the same taxpayers. Every district competes for teachers, resources, and reputation, even as enrollment declines and costs rise.
This structure once reflected civic pride and local identity, but it now represents duplication and inefficiency. Instead of combining strength, each system protects its autonomy, stretching limited funds across three bureaucracies. Families see the difference in aging facilities, program cuts, and inconsistent quality—but they also pay for it through higher taxes and slower improvements. A county this size doesn’t need three command centers; it needs one coherent plan for educating its children.
🚨 Separate Sirens: When Safety Costs Too Much
The same pattern exists in public safety. Catawba County, Hickory, and each town in Catawba County maintain their own police, fire, and emergency response systems, with separate command structures, dispatch centers, and budgets. Coordination works during major incidents, but day-to-day overlap creates unnecessary costs.
Equipment, training, and facility expenses multiply, even though emergencies don’t stop at city lines. A more unified approach to emergency management could reduce waste, improve service, and make better use of taxpayer dollars.
💼 One Region, Many Agendas: Economic Development Without Direction
Redundancy repeats in economic development. Catawba County has a central Economic Development Corporation (EDC), but every municipality still runs its own programs, incentives, and branding. The City of Hickory pursues downtown revitalization and business growth through its planning office, while the county and the EDC focus on industrial recruitment. Newton, Conover, and other towns run their own initiatives, often targeting the same companies or grants. Each group means well, but they rarely move in sync.
The Western Piedmont Council of Governments (WPCOG) was created to bridge these divides—to coordinate planning, transportation, housing, and infrastructure efforts across Alexander, Burke, Caldwell, and Catawba Counties. Its mission is regional cooperation, but over time that mission has become administrative rather than strategic.
The result is a patchwork economy: Catawba County recruits industry, Hickory chases redevelopment, and adjacent counties compete for the same limited projects instead of building complementary strengths. Real progress will require leadership willing to use WPCOG’s framework not just for paperwork, but for purpose—one playbook, one direction, and shared accountability.
🛠️ Infrastructure in Silos: The Geography of Waste
The consequences of divided governance become clearest in public infrastructure. Roads, water systems, broadband networks, and transit projects require cooperation across city and county lines, yet they are often planned and funded in isolation.
There are exceptions that prove coordination is possible—Greenway Public Transportation, the Catawba County Economic Development Corporation, regional water/sewer services, Catawba Valley Community College, and the Western Piedmont Workforce Board all show what happens when jurisdictions commit to shared goals.
Yet these partnerships remain the exception, not the rule. The persistence of fragmentation is the product of incentives: every layer wants to keep its own authority, budget, and visibility. The cost shows up in everyday life—higher taxes, delayed projects, and lost opportunity. When people stop believing the system can solve problems, they stop paying attention, and the system stops working.
💰 Expansion Without Benefit: When Growth Serves Government First
At some point, public service becomes self-service. Major projects are sold as proof of progress, but many add little to everyday life. They raise tax receipts without creating matching jobs, using public funds to support private gain while households see higher bills and the same struggles.
The result is a cycle of expansion without benefit: new offices, more meetings, higher spending, and no measurable increase in prosperity. Real success is measured in whether people can afford homes, find good jobs, and trust their leaders—not in ribbon cuttings or tax-base bragging rights.
⚖️ Reclaiming Accountability: Lowering the True Cost of Control
The real challenge isn’t money or manpower—it’s mindset. Reform will not come from another committee or consultant’s report. It will come from leadership willing to trade individual credit for collective gain: merging departments, consolidating school systems, setting one regional plan, and holding every public body to the same standard of efficiency.
The public deserves a government that delivers outcomes, not excuses. Lowering the cost of control starts with courage—the willingness of leaders to put results ahead of rank and serve the people instead of the process.
Cheat Sheet – The Cost of Control
Fragmented governance doesn’t just waste tax dollars—it weakens the very systems that support work itself. The cost of control isn’t only measured in lost efficiency—it’s measured in lost opportunity.
The next structural failure lies in the labor market itself. Hickory’s economy has become compressed, with too many people competing for too few stable, well-paying jobs. What began as bureaucratic fragmentation has trickled down into personal stagnation. The region is working harder than ever but moving nowhere.
