Towns Partner to Cut Expenses

the tradition in the Northeast has been for communities to take care of their own needs. Still, there are certainly models for regionalization here, notably our school administrative units, and mutual aid compacts for firefighting.

Tim Murphy, executive director of the Southwest Region Planning Commission, said there's often some initial resistance to regionalizing services or equipment purchases. But, he said, "When you can show how it will hit you in the pocketbook, that's when people become more interested in listening."

Economic necessity

Paul Sanderson, a staff attorney at the Local Government Center in Concord, said the economic downturn is driving a renewed interest in regionalization.

"We're all kind of breaking down some of our traditional barriers because we recognize that we need the economies of scale in order to purchase common things," said Sanderson, who is also a selectman in Greenland. "One of the first things you can look at that's really not threatening is cooperative purchasing. We're not giving up any control; we're just trying to go buy the same things together, whether it's salt or sand or equipment." Bruce Dyke, chairman of the Chichester budget committee, also chairs the Suncook Valley Regional Town Association, which also includes officials from Barnstead, Epsom, Pembroke and Pittsfield. The group has been meeting for about a year to explore possible cooperative ventures.Its "first big tangible win" was a joint health-insurance agreement, which saved his own town about $20,000 this year, Dyke said.

Pittsfield Fire Chief Gary Johnson will be at the group's next meeting in October to discuss the possibility of creating a regional fire service. The idea is not to eliminate existing departments, Johnson explained. "Regionalization basically takes all those departments and combines them into one department," he said.

And that allows communities to share equipment, hire full-time firefighters, and locate fire stations in more centralized locations, he said.

Dyke said many communities in the past have been reluctant to consider such solutions. But, he said, "As money becomes more scarce in terms of town budgets, it's a good opportunity to force these dialogues."

The current economic downturn, he said, "forces people to give more scrutiny to ideas that are outside the box."

David Preece, executive director of Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission, said communities need to consider new ways to provide services, given the economic constraints."Because I believe the cost savings would be there without sacrificing the level of service or representation," he said.

Partnerships that work

Kurt Grassett, director of public works in Hancock, serves on a selectmen's advisory committee with his counterparts from Peterborough, Dublin and Temple. The towns have already saved money on cooperative purchasing of heating oil and highway equipment. They're also exploring whether they can save money on capital purchases.

Grassett believes these sorts of cooperative ventures will become more common. "Especially for the small towns where we can't buy in bulk and the cost of trucking is so high, it's going to become a necessity just to keep the budgets in line," he said. "You've only got so many dollars, and you've got to make them stretch."

Donna Nashawaty, town manager for Sunapee, meets regularly for lunch with her counterparts in neighboring Newbury and New London. Three years ago, they realized that all three towns were having problems related to town assessments, and decided to share the costs of hiring an assessor and assistant assessor. And the results, she said, "exceeded our expectations."

The towns have not only saved money, but improved customer service, she said. That's because the assessors spend time every week in all three towns, available to answer residents' concerns.

Bruce Berry, director of public works in Amherst, said officials from eight towns in his area have been meeting recently to discuss possible joint ventures.

"We're all trying to do the best we can for our own towns," he said. "Certainly if that includes banding together, we'd be fools not to do that."

Then there's the Temple-Greenville Police Department.

The small, neighboring southwestern towns used to have their own stations, cruisers, officers and chiefs. But after Greenville dissolved its police force in 2004, James McTague, the Temple police chief, had a radical idea while mowing his lawn one day: "What if we disbanded and got rid of the Temple police department, and created the Temple-Greenville police department?"'

And that's just what the two towns did three years ago. "We were the first ones ever to do that in the state," McTague said.

The merger, he said, reduced the number of officers and cruisers needed, while at the same time increasing police salaries and coverage hours. The first year, Temple saved $46,000, Greenville $115,000. "For us, it has worked out fantastic," the chief said.

McTague said the biggest hurdle towns have to overcome is what he calls the "sandbox" theory: "They don't want to play nice in the sandbox. My shovel's my shovel, and you have your own shovel."

But, he said, "With the economic situation going on, I think towns are going to really start to take a hard look at combining their resources and sharing."

 

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