A little while back I noticed a story in State House News (sadly subscription only) describing how the Patrick Administration may be shifting the emphasis of its municipal relief/reform proposals from giving cities/towns more revenue raising powers to spurring greater inter-municipal and regional collaboration. This with an eye towards driving efficiencies and reducing costs at the local level.
While its unclear whether the Administration will in fact move away from its revenue raising proposals, they are doing a lot more than that to get to grips with rising municipal expenditures (and more than any recent Administration to drive reforms at the local level).
But this progress has largely gone unreported (as the revenue raisers took all the attention). I thought it worth mentioning here but wanted to learn more so I got in touch with Joel Barrera at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to ask him about some of the progress already made on the regional agenda to date.
Joel helpfully responded that:
There has been a lot of activity toward regionalizing services and land use decisions, and the Patrick Administration is leading on this issue. There have been a number of individually significant actions that, together, can be viewed as a new strategy and vision for promoting regionalism and holding people accountable to those goals.
He went on to provide a list of important measures being implemented to achieve these goals, including:
Intermunicipal Agreements Law. Under this new law signed by the Governor, decisions to consolidate services, personnel, and facilities can be made by Boards of Selectmen without having to go to town meeting.
District Local Technical Assistance. Under this program, $2m is dedicated to regional planning agencies with a goal toward helping communities collaborate, including regionalizing services.
Commonwealth Capital Criteria. Under the Patrick Administration, communities that demonstrate a commitment to regional land use planning and collaboration get extra credit on their grant application, an enormous incentive.
Corridor Planning. The Administration has begun to bring together communities to plan land use decisions along “corridors” such as the South Coast Rail Project and soon the Route 128 Corridor, which has enormous development pressure.
Consolidating 911 Centers. Massachusetts has more than 300 911 centers, while NH has one. Under the new 911 surcharge law drafted by the Patrick Administration, communities get more money if they are part of a regional 911/dispatch center, and there is a pool of seed capital funds for communities that want to come together to deliver this service.
Public Health. The Department of Public Health has laid the groundwork for regionalizing public health services, and the Administration has proposed legislation to consolidate department and deliver services regionally.
I don’t know much more about the details of these proposals – but Mr. Barrera went on to say:
Together, these kinds of reforms become a strategy to take down barriers, provide incentives, and hold communities accountable for delivering services as efficiently as possible. The public demands and deserves that vision of efficient and effective government. In this fiscal climate, we need to promote regional services as a way to continue to provide adequate public services.
Sounds good to me.
Going forward, while there remains scope to debate greater municipal revenue raising powers, further progress on local cooperation and efficiency – with a real push from the center – makes a helluva lot of sense as well.
If I had my druthers, I’d like to see consideration of giving the State and regional bodies enhanced roles in planning (with real decision-making powers, including potentially overruling local decisions that go against State policies as done under chapter 40B but broader than just about affordable housing) as poorly planned and coordinated growth wastes resources (both natural and financial) and stymies sound long-term economic development. Here’s hoping the Administration continues to mine this fruitful vein for further regional and municipal reform.
Provision of regional services was one of the topics of discussion when elimination of county governments was a hot issue a few years back (about 1997 through 1999, if I recall correctly). Critics of the old counties wanted to eliminate the useless layer of government between service provision (Registers of Deeds, jails, etc.) and the state or local funds that supported those services.
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p>Supporters of the old county system as well as some proponents of the alternative “Council of Governments” model said there was a need for a coordinating entity to provide regional services if someone would please just give them some money. Franklin County (which has no cities) already had a COG. Local officials and voters in the Berkshires rejected a COG proposal. Berkshire County government went away and was not replaced with a COG. Other counties survived (depending on how well-connected their County Treasurer was).
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p>Have local officials and voters been more comfortable with regionalizing services if there’s no threat of a monolithic, central organizing entity overseeing the service? Yes and no. Many regional agreements have come up through what I would describe as an organic process: small towns banding together to combine bids/purchases for salt, sand and other road building and maintenance materials, for instance. I believe this works in the Berkshires because members of the Highway Superintendents Association sits down for massive breakfasts of bacon and eggs every few weeks (as well as a testosterone-fueled equipment show once a year). The know each other and have developed some trust.
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p>On the other hand, in 1996 the legislature tried to require that a new entity in the Berkshires would be a regional entity. The Berkshire Economic Development Authority (BEDA) would oversee the clean-up and redevelopment of the contaminated GE site in Pittsfield that had been the engine of the region’s economy for many decades. The entity would not exist, however, until at least two municipalities voted to establish it. Pittsfield was motivated, but not one other city or town was willing. Why would they want to attend years of meetings to help Pittsfield with a piece of contaminated land? The legislature eventually amended the legislation to allow a quasi-municipal entity to go to work, and PEDA (Pittsfield Economic Development Authority) was created.
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p>There are dozens of other examples in this region. If you think making sausage and legislation are weird processes, you should track the growth of ETAs and EOAs under the state’s EDIP. I would love to see overlays of regional school districts (we have one that looks like a giant doughnut with a bite out of it – so much for efficient school transportation goals) with other regional services. It’s bound to be a mish-mash that only a government and political junky could love.
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p>Small towns won’t regionalize if it means playing junior partner to the more populated communities when it comes to decision making. If you offer grant funds as incentives, they will say, essentially, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Resources will continue to go to politically savvy communities that may not need the money as much as another area.
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p>Some of these regionalization innovations will work, and it’s certainly worth trying. Letting Boards of Selectmen make some decisions instead of waiting for Town Meetings may help with some efficiencies. And there’s been some buzz for years about regionalizing the Veteran’s Agents required by state law in each city and town, for instance. But it will take a lot of painstaking ground work to win the trust and participation of local officials for each measure.
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p>A word to the wise: You have publicly declared that you hope this latest regionalization initiative will lead to regionalization of land use decisions. This kind of talk will undermine your goal. Local officials would interpret regional land use regulation as usurping local control when the Governor’s stated purpose is saving money. Local officials might embrace the idea of saving money, but giving up power over land use decisions will really get their backs up.
I’d like to see more local contol usurped on land use. It would save money but I take the point about how it would be perceived.