LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 33 



In order to facilitate state supervision, the school districts are 

 organized into 48 supervisory unions, each having from one to nine 

 districts. A supervisory union is under the general supervision of the 

 superintendent of schools, who is an employee of the State Board of 

 Education but is an appointee of the local school boards. 



Of the 241 school districts in the state, four do not maintain a 

 school. Fifty-five districts have only one-room schools, the number in 

 each district varying from one to nine. On the other hand, 108 dis- 

 tricts have no one-room schools. There are 145 school districts which 

 provide only elementary education, grades I to VIII, and there are 

 83 districts which provide the full 12 years of elementary and second- 

 ary education. Every school district is required by law to provide 

 the equivalent of eight grades of elementary education. Furthermore, 

 districts not maintaining a high school are required to pay high school 

 tuition but not transportation. In 1939-40, 29.4 percent of all pupils 

 were registered in senior high school, grades IX to XII, and 70.6 

 percent in the elementary grades, I to VIII. The teachers in rural 

 one-room schools constitute 13.2 percent of all the teachers in the 

 public schools of the state but have only 10.8 percent of the pupils. 



County functions are confined principally to welfare and the 

 administration of justice. The county legislative body is the county 

 convention, the membership of which consists of town representa- 

 tives to the state legislature. County officials are not members of 

 the convention. The convention is held in legislative years, biennial- 

 ly. Money is appropriated at the convention for two years, buf each 

 year's appropriation is voted separately and is collected in the year 

 in which it is levied. 



The county institutions include the county farm, jail, hospital, 

 and house of correction. With the exception of the jail in some in- 

 stances, all of these institutions are centralized at the county farm and 

 are under the immediate supervision of a superintendent, an appointee 

 of the county commissioners, the executive board of the county. 



The law enforcement officers of the county are the sherifif and his 

 deputies, county solicitor, and medical referees. The judicial court 

 of the county is called the superior court. Five justices, appointed 

 by the governor and his council, serve the ten counties, and hold two 

 or three terms of court in each county annually. 



Popular comment concerning local government in New England 

 is focused on the premise that the governmental unit has not kept 

 pace with the economic unit and that the former should be expanded 

 accordingly. With respect to the administration of local services of 

 government, the predominating trend in New Hampshire is toward 

 greater supervision and control by the state and not toward a stronger 

 county government at the expense of the towns. This trend in the 

 direction of strengthening state-local relationships is pronounced in 

 many activities, including, in particular, highways, education, public 

 welfare, public health, law enforcement, and tax administration. 



During the 1941 legislative session a committee was appointed 

 to examine the feasibility of eliminating county government and di- 

 viding the county functions between towns and the state. No further 



