American Association of Special Districts’ Members receive policy highlights and insights, as well as governance perspectives, in the Associaiton’s biweekly newsletter, the Special Districts Download. This article was originally published in the January 10, 2025, to launch a newsletter series that focuses on each element of AASD’s State & Federal Policy Platform, and has been modified for this public article.
Federally Defining ‘Special District’ Crucial for All of America’s Districts
Although more than 35,000 special districts provide services that are integral to the daily lives of millions of Americans – providing essential public services across all 50 states and employing nearly 890,000 Americans -, the term “special district” is not defined in federal statutes.
This issues has broad implications: from accessing federally-funded programs, interacting with federal agencies on important infrastructure projects, engaging with intergovernmental partners on planning necessary to access federal programs, inability to certify Census figures, and much more.
The lack of a federal special district definition fosters a statute-driven unlevel playing field for special districts’ interaction with federal programs.
This special districts-specific public policy issue is noticed most with programs administered on a pass-through basis (through states, and through cities and counties; examples include property revenue offsets of federally-managed land, community development programs, recreation programs with transit crossovers, and much more). This has wide-reaching impacts on government efficiencies, quality of service special districts provide in their communities, and proactively responding to the needs of their constituents – and many special districts are still feeling the frustrations of being shut out of two rounds of pandemic relief and recovery funds.
Establishing a special district definition in federal law remains the top public policy priority that binds together all special districts.
For that reason, AASD will be at the federal legislative table in efforts to define special districts in the 119th Congress. AASD Members will be equipped with resources to advocate at the grassroots level for this important legislation, and AASD will ensure our Members’ voice on this particular issue is clearly heard in Washington, D.C.
Let’s dive a little deeper:
Absence of statutory benchmarks for the term “special district” creates inconsistencies in how special districts are referenced as local governments and reduces recognition of special districts as a unit of local government, which together foster hardship for defining districts’ eligibility and access to relevant funding resources.
Without a standard reference, federal agencies have little foundation to recognize special districts as local agencies. The result is the wash-out of special districts’ eligibility and prioritization for funding through the program’s top-down administration. This is clear, based on Census figures sampling FY21 fiscal data on federal and state grants that flow to county, municipal, school district, and special district governments.
All in all, securing a “special district” definition will not solve all of special districts’ federal issues; however, it will go the distance to:
- Ensure federal agencies responsible for making rules on federal programs and administering federal funds/grant/finance programs understand that special districts are, indeed, local governments.
- Place special districts on a more level competitive playing field for federally-funded programs.
- Elevate special districts’ legislative standing to be defined in traditional/common definitions of “unit of local government.”
- Establish a baseline for federal recognition of special district services through formal surveys of America’s 90,000+ local governments. (This will be a focus for AASD’s Research, Academic, and Data Leadership Team)
- Establish a reference in statute to amend regulations that prevent federal agencies from certifying special districts’ population, household, and demographic information. (This issue will be covered extensively in future AASD publications).
AASD participates in efforts to achieve this as its top federal policy priority. The Association collaborates with all organizations to advance this effort and resulting future potential policy opportunities it will unlock.
AASD strives to provide a platform for networking, governance resources, and advocacy for more than 35,000 special districts across all 50 states. These special districts are led by members of their community and often provide critical infrastructure and essential community services with relatively limited resources, including, but not limited to: fire protection, drinking water, wastewater treatment, libraries, flood control and drainage, levee, irrigation, electricity, parks and recreation, resource conservation, healthcare, ambulance, mosquito abatement, transit, road/highway, seaport and riverport, aviation, and public cemetery.
Interested in joining AASD as a trial member? Try us out for three months at no cost. Click here for a 50-second application to get started.
For questions and to get involved, please email contact@americasdistricts.org. Visit AASD’s website at www.americasdistricts.org.