Going Regional
In New England, local identity, right down to the neighborhood and individual streets, runs deep.
This is the region of the country, for example, that gives us the phrase: “Just because a cat has kittens in the oven doesn’t make them biscuits” to let non-natives know that their children are also quite unlikely to ever be considered “from here.”
One of the more memorable and telling lines from the recent Hollywood movies based in Boston was Ed Harris asking Casey Affleck in “Gone Baby Gone,” “Well, it all depends on how you look at it. I mean, you might think that you’re more from here than me, for example. But I’ve been living here longer than you’ve been alive. So who’s right?”
This is a place where someone who is “from” Worcester but has lived for 30 years in Holden is likely to have to explain as much to folks “from” Holden. And for generations, these attitudes have focused the point of view of a great many town governments.
Border Squabbles
The type of county government practiced in other parts of the country gets no traction here, and we won’t argue that it should.
But it is more than encouraging to see Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray, Worcester’s former mayor, advocating greater regional cooperation among cities and towns in Massachusetts.
For the last six months, Murray has been the chairman of the statewide Regional-ization Advisory Commission, and last week, the state Senate unanimously approved a municipal relief bill that included several provisions designed to help cities and towns with regionalization plans.
Some of those provisions would allow the legislative bodies of cities and towns to vote to form regional assessing departments that would share staff. Another would let cities and towns share services without having to wrangle over collective bargaining agreements with local unions. Yet another allows school districts to form purchasing collectives.
We can get over the disappointment that comes with realizing that Murray has had to spend six months telling municipalities, “Duh!” if it means that many, especially those in Central Massachusetts, recognize that what the recession has done to local budgets and business communities means that the time has come for serious regionalization.
Hometown pride, local identity, call it what you will. Home rule tunnel vision may foster those feelings, but it is expensive, parochial and enormously wasteful.
Murray pointed out recently that Massachusetts has more public health departments than Texas. There are about 24 emergency and police dispatchers in Maryland. Massachusetts has 262.
This isn’t to say that regionalization turns government into a public administration wonderland. In 2005, the Town of Holden sued the Wachusett Regional School District and eventually lost its argument that it was unfairly paying more per student than Rutland.
Despite the lawsuit, the fact remains that the Wachusett Regional School District, which is the state’s oldest regional school district, was created by five towns with enough foresight to recognize that they could pool their money to create a bigger, better school system than any of its member towns could afford on their own.
We’re confident that with so many throwing up their hands during budget season, those that find ways to share the cost of services that can be regionalized effectively will come to realize that doing so saves time, effort and money.
We’re also confident that towns that regionalize to the greatest prudent extent will find that every little expenditure is no longer cause for protracted and divisive arguments over the municipal property tax burden.
Regionalization is a common-sense way for cities and towns to become more efficient. We share Murray’s desire for such municipal efficiency and look forward to a Central Massachusetts that honors each town’s individuality, but refuses to let that individuality to hold sway where it doesn’t truly exist.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments