If Gov.-Elect Ned Lamont listens to even half of what his transition team’s Shared Services Committee recommends, then the towns and cities of Connecticut may be in for major changes in the way things are currently run. But that doesn’t mean an end to the spirit or individualism of the municipalities that make Connecticut great.
On the latest edition of Connecticut Conference of Municipalities’ (CCM) “The Municipal Voice” on WNHH FM, John Filchak, executive director of the Northeastern Connecticut Council of Governments (NECCOG), and Brendan Sharkey, former speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives, talked about their big ideas as part of the Governor-Elect’s transition committees. (CCM Executive Director Joe DeLong was also a member of the Shared Service Committee.)
Fresh from giving their proposal, Sharkey and Filchak were ready to make some dramatic claims about how Connecticut can implement the kind of changes that are necessitated by these times. Sharkey illustrated that point well when he said that “the term that we used in our committee was ‘disruptive.’”
“I think the charge of the group in the Lamont transition is to reimagine local services on the municipal and board of [education] side,” he continued. Many of the shared services that the state already enjoys, thanks in part due to COGs like NECCOG, have not traditionally been supported from the top: The state has not really been supported; it’s not structured to be supportive of these kinds of things.”
A Regional Council of Government, or COG, works somewhat like the way a county does and have traditionally been supportive of these measures, initiating projects like NECCOG’s Animal Service Program, which includes towns outside of the COG.
The most important distinction between a COG and a county, though, is that the leaders of the COG are the chief elected officials of the member towns. As Filchak notes early on in the episode, the “people most responsible locally are the people around the table making decisions.”
This makes a difference in a state where some of the town charters go back before there was even a country called the United States of America.
The rigid individualism of towns and cities has deep historical roots. “They’re responsible for their respective communities,” as Filchak said, “so if they want to do something regional, they’re accountable back to towns.”
If the governor were to get behind the committee’s reports, that will help towns make sense of shared services.
So will common sense. As Sharkey noted, a state like California is run with 10 emergency call centers, while Connecticut has over 100.
The proposal that the Shared Service Transition Committee has plans to be “disruptive” if instituted to the extent that Sharkey and Filchak have proposed on this episode of “The Municipal Voice.” But the payoff doesn’t have to mean exchanging a town’s identity or sense of history; it could mean increased efficiency among neighboring towns, better services, and savings.
In order to do that, it will be a complete reimagining of the way The Land of Steady Habits works.
“The Municipal Voice” airs every other Wednesday, the next episode airs on Jan. 2. Listen to the latest episode by clicking on the video above in this story.
In other states, whole municipalities merged, sometimes to the county level but sometimes to something less than that. The merged cities often do quite a bit better than other cities in their region. (Think Columbus, OH vs Cleveland, Indianapolis vs Cincinnati, Nashville v Birmingham.)
New Haven and West Haven should merge. West Haven is probably not a viable economic unit in the long run and there are economies of scale in merged services, which should allow tax rates to drop in both places. The state might provide some bridge funding. The increased population would aid greatly in marketing the region's economy. (Kind of weirdly, a lot of economic/marketing analysis in done looking at city statistics rather than metro area statistics.)