[JayCT]

State Representative Jason Rojas published this opinion piece in CT Mirror supporting regionalism in our state. What do people think? Is it good or not?

I’ve been very vocal against wide spread regionalization. Sure it makes sense for smaller towns to regionalize many services. It also makes sense to regionalize things like Health Services and Emergency Management Centers but it gets questionable when it comes to things like education, infrastructure maintenance and land use planning and zoning.

Bigger is NOT better. It maybe cheaper but certainly does not provide better services. Bigger regional services means less accountability. How accountable can regional school boards be when they cover tens of thousands of kids? Imagine if we merged land use and decisions are made in a city far from your town. I don’t want someone in Hartford making decisions here in Glastonbury. Do you think a regional public works agency would be as responsive to an uneven sidewalk or pothole on a neighborhood street? How about fire and police response? I doubt it.

It’s funny how big cities seem to push regionalism. I’m wondering if the reason they are such advocates is because with regionalism the city’s numbers for things like education would greatly improve? If Hartford schools merged with West Hartford, Wethersfield and Newington, they’d suddenly improve their district’s numbers for students scoring reading and math at grade level. The cities could also tap into the suburbs rich tax base and lower taxes. Of course that also means taxes in suburbs would go up. Who wants that? Jay

[Stylo]

Are there case studies in similar areas that have made this change with success?

If not, maybe it’s just another “looks good on paper” proposal.

[BobNJ1960]

I have seen it elsewhere work quite well. Economies of scale can produce either savings, or more bang for the buck.

It is like everything else. It comes down to execution, which generally government fails at a ridiculously high percentage of the time.

[SteveM85]

Originally Posted by BobNJ1960

I have seen it elsewhere work quite well. Economies of scale can produce either savings, or more bang for the buck.

I've seen regional ambulane corp drastically fail in CT. It took 45 mins to respond to a cardiac arrest incident that resulted in irreparable brain damage due to lack of oxygen. Done. Public works and schools might work in rural areas if it saves the state money.
I dont know about Hartford where this guy is from but any such proposal for the FCounty coast up to New Haven would be DOA and moot. It's already 11 congested and crowded cities as it is. Can you picture all the public works trucks, the cops chasing criminals everywhere, the firemen, ambulances, buses and shuttles driving around back and forth all over the place. It would be a madhouse. It already is one.

[Vetgirl2014]

If they regionalize schools, so many people in FFC will just up and leave and then there goes half the states budget.

[SteveM85]

Originally Posted by Vetgirl2014

If they regionalize schools, so many people in FFC will just up and leave and then there goes half the states budget.

No they won't, they just got here from NY and NJ. More are pouring in by the day. The richest go private anyway.
Max Scherzer might be a Greenwich resident soon with his new boss, he makes $43Mper. The state of CT has their eye on that move.
They could combine Wilton/Weston/Easton/Redding then Ridgefield/Brookfield/Bethel

[Mike 75]

Rojas is a godsend for the CT GOP. No better way to reverse the Dem gains in the suburbs than by pushing regionalism.

[BobNJ1960]

Originally Posted by SteveM85

I've seen regional ambulane corp drastically fail in CT. It took 45 mins to respond to a cardiac arrest incident that resulted in irreparable brain damage due to lack of oxygen. Done. Public works and schools might work in rural areas if it saves the state money.
I dont know about Hartford where this guy is from but any such proposal for the FCounty coast up to New Haven would be DOA and moot. It's already 11 congested and crowded cities as it is. Can you picture all the public works trucks, the cops chasing criminals everywhere, the firemen, ambulances, buses and shuttles driving around back and forth all over the place. It would be a madhouse. It already is one.

I'd favor exploring the regionalization of any non emergency departments where the staff is 3 or fewer apiece in neighboring towns, and where a supervisor/manager is budgeted with significantly higher salary levels than the other 1 or 2 staff. Perhaps in 3 towns regionalizing, you now need just 7 staff, 1 supervisory. Multiply by many department types, savings can be hefty. I like the savings mainly for towns 20k and under in population, prone to these small departments where, due to town grand list size, an oversized % of budget exists vs same departments in larger towns.

I am ok with back office school system functions going to regional groupings assuming the quality of the school systems stay intact.

Many of the smallish size of our 169 towns struggle to provide services with tiny grand lists. That should be the focus, not our cookie cutter 50k population towns in the crowded southwest corner.

[MikefromCT]

Thank you but no.

Originally Posted by JayCT

It’s funny how big cities seem to push regionalism. I’m wondering if the reason they are such advocates is because with regionalism the city’s numbers for things like education would greatly improve? If Hartford schools merged with West Hartford, Wethersfield and Newington, they’d suddenly improve their district’s numbers for students scoring reading and math at grade level. The cities could also tap into the suburbs rich tax base and lower taxes. Of course that also means taxes in suburbs would go up. Who wants that?

Well, of course the cities are pushing for this. They'd be the sole benefactors while the suburbs would be left in the wind to twist. As I said earlier, Hartford could annex the whole damn county, but the original 18 square miles would remain mostly blighted, the schools within those original 18 square miles would still be performing abysmally, and crime within those 18 square miles would still remain sky-high, as it is now. You can throw all the money you want at a problem, but eventually there comes a point where this can't help you. If the people and lawmakers within those 18 square miles refuse to lift a finger to better themselves, and choose instead to just siphon more money from the 'burbs, nothing will change.

[norcal2k19]

This is DOA and I say this as someone in favor of regionalizing some services such IT and shared services. Localism runs deep here and is a differentiator.

For the most part it works - at least from the really dysfunctional "regional" or county governance I experienced in California (too large of a state). CT reminds of the UK a bit which has a ton of "local authorities" who manage trash collection and schools (just imagine if NYC had 33 local authorities who are laser-focused on their service areas like London and then just leave the big stuff like police and fire to the regional body aka Greater London Authority).

We just need to consider have a robust regional agencies for investing in our cities and managing the social services they disproportionately take on compared to some of the surrounding towns.