The Cost of Efficiency; Why Ohio’s Plan to Dissolve Villages Could Unravel the Fabric of Rural Ohio

Drive down any state route in rural Ohio and you will eventually pass a sign announcing a village that takes only a few seconds to travel through: a cluster of homes, a fire station, maybe a feed store or a small park named after a local family. These places are not large, and often the nearest stoplight sits miles away. Yet they serve as the spiritual and functional center of the countryside—the place where people vote, volunteer, and meet to face challenges that are often invisible from the cities to the north or the statehouse in Columbus.

For generations, Ohio has depended on these small villages as guardians of rural identity. But under new state legislation, many are facing a stark ultimatum: prove you are still capable of operating as a government—or step aside and let the township take over.

This transformation is quiet. There are no bulldozers or closed-door takeovers. Instead, each village must undergo a decennial audit, triggered by the U.S. Census. If the community cannot show that it provides at least five of ten essential public services (such as road maintenance, fire or EMS protection, and water/sewer systems)—or if it fails to elect candidates for every seat on the village council—then the future of the village government is put to a direct vote of the people. This is democracy at the edge of a cliff.

State lawmakers say the goal is efficiency. Ohio has more than two thousand local governments—a patchwork that critics argue has become costly and redundant. There are villages that, due to decline or disinvestment, no longer maintain even the most basic functions of a municipality. Supporters of the new law insist that consolidation will strengthen public service delivery, ease the burden on taxpayers, and hold local officials accountable.

In urban and suburban parts of the state, those arguments may feel compelling. But out on the rural edges—where services are already thin and distances long—this approach hits a more sensitive nerve.

When a village government disappears, the people do not lose just an office building or a mayor. They lose a voice that has always spoken directly for them. Township officials may now be responsible for twice the area and a wider range of viewpoints. Roads that once received priority attention—because a school bus travels them every morning—may suddenly be one more line in a long list of needs. A fire station that once proudly defended its own village may find its response area stretched further, with fewer volunteers able to reach the station in time.

Even schools—the beating heart of rural continuity—feel the ripple. A strong school makes young families want to stay. A fragile school gives them a reason to leave.

If a village’s dissolution leads to weaker roads, slower emergency response, or reduced investment in infrastructure, families often have little choice but to move toward larger towns. Enrollment drops follow, and within a few years, a school district may be forced into consolidation. What started as a governance decision can end up severing a community’s lifeline to the next generation.

This is why the policy looks very different on the ground than it does on paper.

To see what is at stake, one need only look to Bremen—a nearly 200-year-old village in Fairfield County where brick streets and tidy homes mark a place that has weathered economic shifts and population trends with quiet success. Bremen has not grown explosively, nor has it collapsed. Instead, it has persisted—powered by residents who take pride in their community’s independence.

Bremen maintains its own council, provides essential utilities, invests in its main streets, and continues to support local civic life. In short, it proves that small does not mean weak. Its survival contradicts the narrative that villages are inherently inefficient or obsolete.

If a viable village like Bremen demonstrates the promise of small-scale governance, why consider dissolving villages outright? Why not invest in the ones trying to hold on?

Lawmakers counter that the policy isn’t designed to target communities like Bremen—only those that are no longer providing adequate services. But the criteria for determining failure are blunt. A village that provides top-quality fire protection through a township contract might still be considered “non-performing” because the service wasn’t technically delivered by the village itself. A community that struggles to find candidates for office—a growing rural challenge—could be labeled dysfunctional, regardless of local engagement.

The risk is that the law doesn’t separate struggling villages worth saving from those truly unable to continue.

The deeper issue is representation. Rural Ohio already speaks with one of the faintest voices in state politics. As villages dissolve, their populations will be folded into larger jurisdictions that may prioritize suburban development or commercial corridors over agricultural preservation, grazing access, timber management, or school bus safety on frost-heaved roads.

Without local elected champions who understand how farms operate, how sheep panic when dogs roam too close, how floodwaters carve valleys through hayfields—rural needs will be easy to overlook.

This is not to suggest reform is misguided. Efficient government matters greatly. But for it to succeed in rural areas, the state must build a transition runway, not a trapdoor. That means guaranteeing essential services during and after restructuring. It means providing counties and townships with the funding and planning capability needed to absorb new responsibilities. It means protecting agricultural zoning and partnering actively with rural schools to preserve the programs that build tomorrow’s workforces.

Most importantly, it means designing policy with rural voices at the table—not just rural names in the statistics.

Because villages do more than maintain a water plant or plow streets. They anchor a place. They hold the stories of the families who shaped the land. They create the conditions for children to leave—and still feel like they have a home to return to.

In Columbus, village dissolution may appear as a ledger entry. But in places like Bremen, Rutland, Dexter, and thousands more, it is far more personal. It is the answer to a question every rural family lives with:

Will our community still be here for the next generation?

If Ohio wants the answer to be yes, then its reforms must strengthen the communities that endure, not eliminate the ones still fighting to do so. The future of Ohio’s villages should not be measured solely by what they cost—but by what they make possible.