Local Agency Formation Commission
Local Agency Formation Commissions or LAFCOs are regional service planning agencies of the State of California.  LAFCOs are located in all 58 counties and exercise regulatory and planning powers in step with their prescribed directive to oversee the establishment, expansion, governance, and dissolution of local government agencies and their municipal service areas to meet current and future community needs.  LAFCOs were established in 1963 and administer a section of California planning law now known as the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Local Government Reorganization Act of 2001.

LAFCOs' regulatory powers are outlined in California Government Code Sections 56375 and 56133.  This include approving, establishing, expanding, reorganizing, and, in limited circumstances, dissolving cities and special districts.   LAFCOs are also responsible for approving all outside service extensions by contract or agreement beginning in 2001.   LAFCOs' regulatory powers are generally exercised in response to applications filed by other local agencies, landowners, or registered voters.   LAFCOs' are also allowed to initiate certain proposals if consistent with a recommendation from its own planning studies, such as establishing, consolidating, or dissolving special districts.

LAFCOs' planning responsibilities are explicit to informing their regulatory powers and highlighted by establishing spheres of influence for all cities and special districts.   Spheres of influence represent the State of California's version of municipal growth boundaries and demark the territory that the LAFCO independently believes represents the appropriate and probable future jurisdictional boundary and service area of the subject agency. All jurisdictional boundary changes and outside service extensions, notably, must be consistent with the subject agencies' spheres of influence, with limited exceptions.

History
They were established in 1963 in all California counties except San Francisco, which would obtain one only in 2001, by the California State Legislature. Their current legal authority and mandate are defined by the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Local Government Reorganization Act of 2000 (Government Code Section 56000 et seq).  LAFCOs' powers and duties have expanded in step with subsequent legislation and most recently include regulating cities and districts' ability to provide services outside their jurisdictional boundaries by contract or agreement.  LAFCOs also must approve requests by districts to either expand their service powers and/or divest existing service powers.

Authority
LAFCOs have both regulatory and planning authority:
 As a regulatory agency, they are for "discouraging urban sprawl and encouraging the orderly formation and development of local agencies" based on "local circumstances and conditions." Key regulatory responsibilities include establishing (formations and incorporations), expanding (annexations), decreasing (detachments), combining (mergers and consolidations), and eliminating (dissolutions and disincorporations) cities and special districts as well as authorizing outside service contracts.
 As a planning agency, it is charged to determine and update, at least every five years, the sphere of influence of each city and special district. In updating spheres of influence, it must prepare Municipal Service Reviews of relevant local agencies and services. It may initiate proposals to consolidate special districts, merge a special district with a city, dissolve a special district, establish a subsidiary district, or any combination of them.

Under the agency, no community within an incorporated city has ever been granted city status. That is partially because the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Local Government Reorganization Act of 2000 makes it difficult for communities to break away from their original cities, as the community must gain approval from the city from which it is detaching, and it requires two thirds of the entire community and re-affected city to agree. The only community within a city ever to be brought before a vote by LAFCO was the San Fernando Valley in the early 2000s, which was denied. No detachments from a city have been successful in the state since 1947.

LAFCOs are governed by a commission consisting of appointed elected officials representing the county board of supervisors, city councils, and - at least for most - special district directors.  (Not all LAFCOs have special district representation.)   The appointed elected officials on LAFCO also appoint members from the general public to serve on the commission.   LAFCO funding is provided by local agencies and divided in one-third apportionments between the county, cities, and special districts with the latter amounts further divided among the individual agencies based on tax revenues.

Types
According to the Committee on Local Government of the California Senate, LAFCOs regulate all city and most special district boundaries, including these:

 Airport districts
 California water districts
 Community services districts
 County sanitation districts
 County service areas
 County water districts
 County waterworks districts
 Fire protection districts
 Harbor and port districts
 Healthcare districts
 Irrigation districts
 Library districts
 Mosquito abatement districts
 Municipal utility districts
 Municipal water districts
 Pest control districts
 Police protection districts
 Public cemetery districts
 Public utility districts
 Reclamation districts
 Recreation and park districts
 Resource conservation districts
 Sanitary districts
 Sewer districts
 Sewer maintenance districts
 Vector control districts

LAFCOs do not directly regulate counties.  There are also certain types special districts that are exempt from LAFCO oversight.  This includes:

 Air pollution control districts
 Air quality management districts
 Bridge or highway districts
 Community college districts
 Community facilities districts (Mello-Roos districts)
 Improvement districts
 Joint power agencies
 Joint highway districts
 Permanent road divisions
 Redevelopment agencies
 School districts
 Separation of grade districts
 Service zones of special districts
 Special assessment districts
 Transit or rapid transit districts
 Unified or union high school library districts