The Tri-City Herald has an interesting story about the end of Benton and Franklin counties' joint public defender office. According to the Herald, the joint office had been in place since 2007 and it was administered by Benton County.

Benton and Franklin also have a combined human services agency (though the article notes that may also soon be dissolved). This is similar to the practice (which we wrote about in "Spending and Revenues of Select Washington Counties") of some cities contracting with their county to provide certain services. But, according to the article, "Benton and Franklin counties are unique in Washington in jointly operating some departments."

One reason for the break up: "Publicly, the counties claim growth means it no longer makes sense to share operations."

The two counties certainly are growing. We included both of them in our review of county budgets because the Benton-Franklin metropolitan statistical area had the state's greatest employment growth since the beginning of the Great Recession. Further, Franklin County's population growth from 2005 to 2014 was 38.4 percent and Benton County's growth was 17.1 percent. Those are the two highest population growth rates of any county in the state.

(Here are our reports on Benton and Franklin.)

Of course there are probably other reasons for the counties to operate their own offices (the Herald mentions communication problems, for one), but to the extent that growth is a factor, the break up seems like a good problem to have.