It doesn’t take much time observing Illinois politics before encountering a consolidation crusader, livid about our nearly 9,000 units of local government.

It also doesn’t take long to find Illinoisans evangelizing about the importance of local control, rejecting unfunded mandates or taking direction from Springfield and Chicago.

Often, the same person falls in both camps.

The thought surfaced thanks to a Fox River Grove reader responding to Thursday’s column about the Chicago Bears’ plans to build a $5 billion stadium complex in Arlington Heights in which I asserted “the more entities that get involved the harder it will be to conduct a valid accounting showing everyone gets their money’s worth.”

He correctly noted I didn’t fully explain that talking point. Exploring those details made me think about the way we manage public transportation.

Aside from state and local highways, where public money facilitates private travel, Arlington Heights also is served by Metra Commuter Rail, on the Union Pacific Northwest line, and Pace Suburban Bus. Both of those agencies are under the umbrella of the Regional Transportation Authority, which also operates the Chicago Transit Authority. Altogether, the RTA oversees finances, funding and planning for a system that serves more than 2 million daily riders in six counties: Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will.

The RTA Board itself has 16 members. County Board chairs from the five collar counties appoint one each, as does the Cook County Board president, the Chicago Mayor appoints five and the Cook County Board members who don’t represent Chicago appoint four. At least 11 of those people have to agree on the 16th member (former state Sen. Kirk Dillard has been chairman since 2014), then that person appoints the executive director, also subject to approval from 11 directors.

According to rtachicago.org, the annual operating budget is $3 billion, the combined assets are worth about $160 billion and there is a five-year capital plan that will cost $8.4 billion.

Absent the Bears’ involvement, neither the RTA nor Metra nor Pace would likely pursue major Arlington Heights upgrades. Unless the team pays for expansion, the money will come from taxpayers or riders through either increased fares or at the expense of (in money or deferrals) other projects elsewhere in the six-county network.

With so many governmental entities involved it’s already difficult to prove the needs of a taxpayer in Antioch or Elburn are given due consideration, but consider if Illinois had a singular Department of Public Transportation responsible for every train track and bus wheel statewide.

Transit is just one piece of the stadium puzzle. As soon as the Bears get one government unit to financially help with this project, the fiscal ramifications will begin to spread.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on Twitter @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.