There are five counties of Hawaii on the Hawaiian Islands in the United States. Counties are the only lower governments in the State of Hawaii. This is unusual in the United States. Most states include city governments, township governments, or other local authorities. The Hawaii State Department of Education is in charge of Hawaii's public education, because there are no local school boards to operate schools. People in Hawaii pay property taxes and user fees to the county they live in to help pay for road maintenance, community activities, parks, garbage disposal, police, ambulances, and fire departments. All the counties in Hawaii were formed in 1905 from unorganized territory, seven years after the Territory of Hawaii was created. The county of Kalawao is very small because it used to be a leper colony, so it does not as have many elected officials as the other counties do.