Watch John Oliver explain what's so special about special districts

Since he's been spending so much time talking about the presidential race and the biggest form of government, John Oliver decided to spend part of Sunday's Last Week Tonight turning his attention to special districts, those small units of government with the power to use tax dollars to do one specific thing.

Sometimes called ghost governments, they can be set up for almost any purpose, Oliver said, and there are 40,000 across the United States spending $100 billion a year. In some areas, several districts overlap, and it's possible neighbors don't even pay the same rates; as Oliver pointed out, he found one person who paid $1,000 as part of an irrigation special district, while his neighbor across the street that was part of a different district only had to fork over $7.

While many special districts are run efficiently, there are others that have a host of issues — Oliver discussed one fire district in Kentucky where the former assistant fire chief spent more than $100,000 on such necessary items as chewing tobacco, fireworks, and pornography, but perhaps Oliver's most jaw-dropping example was out of Conroe, Texas. There, a company wanted to build a new neighborhood on undeveloped land, and in order to form a special district to issue bonds, there needed to be a vote. Since no one lived there yet and a vote was impossible, they hired another company to set up a mobile home and move two people in on a nine-month lease, so the pair could eventually be the only people eligible to vote in favor of the bonds. It's a lot to unravel, which is why Oliver asked some special guests to join him in explaining the districts that most people don't even know exist. Watch the video below. Catherine Garcia

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