A couple of weeks ago news media unloaded the latest attack on township government.

They were working from a Better Government Association report.

Most of the attention was aimed at Cook County townships. That’s where most of the land is incorporated. Only about 2% of the population lives in unincorporated areas.

McHenry County was mentioned in the Chicago Sun-Times article in the last paragraph of its November 9, 2010, article.

It concentrated on the road district part of township government and based its figures on 2010 expenditures reported in an IDOT report.

It was in a cost per mile comparison for the six Chicago-area counties:

• Cook – $80,509
• Lake – $63,164
• DuPage – $42,515
• Will – 32,174
• Kane – 30,048
• McHenry – 27,399

I found the Illinois Department of Transportation 2009 study and extracted the following information about McHenry County Townships:

Doing the math yields the following cost per mile figures:

• 

  Townships in McHenry County with incorporated areas shown.

  Alden – $7,240

• Algonquin – $77,945
• Burton – $7,565
• Chemung – $13,729
• Coral – $8,163
• Dorr – $59,278
• Dunham – $7,986
• Grafton – $63,886
• Greenwood – $25,788
• Hartland – $8,726
• Hebron – $7,351
• Marengo – $15,000
• McHenry -$40,701
• Nunda – $40,719
• Richmond – $17,055
• Riley – $5,737
• Seneca – $9,794

Obviously there are great variances with more urbanized townships spending more to maintain roads than more rural townships.