Regional Services

Why does our corner of the country not adopt true regionalization? If you travel throughout the country, you realize in a great many places where county government performs much of the functions that are provided on a local basis here. Talking with people in other places, they seem to be more satisfied then not with this arrangement.

Certainly there is an attraction to the "economy of scale" concept for such services. Do three adjoining communities need one ten wheel truck each? Road work contracts could be bundled with most likely substantial savings. Bulk purchasing would shave thousands off of supply purchases. The list could go on and on.

Yet everyone talks the talk, but not everyone is rushing to do it. Why? The way I see it, it comes down to control and less than equitable results from past experiences.

As to control, no one is willing to readily surrender the jurisdiction/power they have to another community. I remember attempts in this town about 16 years ago to co-ordinate maintenance. What killed the concept was no one wanted to give up what they had. Move it up to a regional community concept and the problems magnify.

With dwindling financial resources, we need to think outside of the box. County government in Massachusetts, at least in our area, needs to be either abolished, or seriously revamped. The only way you can make regionalization work is on a concept like county wide government. Sure two or three communities may be able to band together to provide some mutual services for specific things. See how well it will work if they try to provide fire, police, BPW. If you enjoy politics as a blood sport now, you must be jumping up and down hoping for this.

As to the less than equitable results from past experiences, look to the constant complaints between communities in a regional school district. Not just what it is noted here.  Fairhaven, Dartmouth and New Bedford belong to the GNBRVTHS (my apologies if I missed a letter). There is nothing equitable about how this arrangement works.

NOTE: Nothing in here is directed against VocTech!!!!! It is a first class facility. The complaints are not caused by the school or its administration.

All the communities receive different levels of state aid. Absolutely no disagreement that each community has an obligation to provide this alternate type of education. No escaping the fact that the three communities signed an agreement to participate.

The problem is along the way, that agreement was changed, and not with the willing consent of the communities. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or space to get in detail about the concept of "Net School Spending" and "Foundation Budgets". The digest version is the state tells each school district what the minimum amount you must spend on your schools. After the state does a bunch of calculations, it tells you how much more you have to pony up. And this is where I have the problem.

If New Bedford sends hypothetically 1000 students; Dartmouth sends 300 students and Fairhaven sends 200 students then one would think whatever the shortfall in funding was, you would divide that amount by the total number of students, multiply it by the number of students per community and send them the bill. Not how it works (but it is how it was suppose to work).

Fairhaven pays roughly three times per student more than what New Bedford pays and Dartmouth pays even more. Is it right? I have heard all the arguments in favor of the equitable wealth formula and distribution. I have yet to be convinced that there is anything equitable about Fairhaven taxpayers, and Dartmouth taxpayers who pay a higher rate per student than Fairhaven, having to pay to educate New Bedford students (and Dartmouth having to pay more for both Fairhaven and New Bedford). Absolutely charge each community what you assign in state aid to the school. After that it should be solely based on the number of students you send.

If there were a vote today to form a regional voc tech, what do you actually think the result would be?

This becomes extremely relevant in the whole regionalization concept because it is a big fear among communities of similar sizes when regionalization is discussed (if it isn't, someone else needs to be involved in the discussions for your community).

You cannot implement regionalization without making sure a community isn't going to have the rules changed on them. Neither can it be truly done on a small scale.

NOTE:  This again is not about Voc Tech per se, it is an example of one of the problems inherent with regionalization.