First Posted: 3/13/2015
It almost sounds too good to be true. Governments cooperating? Saving money? Improving efficiency?
It sounds so good that we’re urging cautious optimism and a little bit of reluctance as “regionalization” becomes the buzzword of 2015.
On Thursday, water and sewer officials from around Allen County met to talk about a study, which looks at consolidating the sanity engineering, sewer and water operations within Allen County.
It’s easy to see the benefits, especially if Lima and the county are both on board. Lima, for instance, already has lines heading north to Cairo. There’s redundancy and sometimes a shortage of high-tech knowledge when every village or city with water operations run separately.
A similar conversation is happening in Putnam County, with talk of the county seat, Ottawa, leading the charge. The village already provides water to nearby Bluffton and Miller City, so the logic is it could also deliver water and sewer systems throughout the county some day.
It’s all part of a push by Gov. John Kasich. The state government’s on a hunt for redundancies in local governments. (Its disappointing quest for redundancies within Columbus is a topic for another day.) It’s a way to make those local government fund cuts not hurt quite so deeply.
We have to enter this discussion of regionalization with a healthy dose of skepticism, though. Consolidation can and does save money. It also costs local autonomy and a community’s ability to make its own decisions.
Regionalization has worked spectacularly, as many local police and fire departments moved their dispatching operations to the centralized 911 center in Lima. These worked spectacularly because these agencies were all partners. Different agencies decided to move their services there when it made sense to them. The results have been strong, with few complaints on how centralized dispatchers handle the variety of calls.
It worked because agencies cooperated and made their own decisions in their own best interest. We urge the same path for the discussion of centralizing water systems. It doesn’t have the same negative connotation of the oft-maligned “metropolitan government.”
Bluffton is a fine case study on this. The village realized it needed major upgrades to its water treatment systems. It shopped around. It decided to buy its water from Ottawa. Village officials carefully and methodically decided what worked for them.
They didn’t just jump at the first option. They weren’t forced into any solution. They made their own decision.
We urge that same kind of caution on this new round. Aging infrastructure around the region will force more municipalities to make some tough decisions. The EPA will no doubt have a say in how much some places must invest in their systems.
These factors should lead these same places to the logical conclusion that working with a bigger system has benefits of expertise and capacity. That should still be their decision to make, though.
