Interlocal Cooperation in the Delivery of Services

Interlocal cooperation in the delivery of services is the subject of this thesis project. The study surveys the types of cooperation communities can engage in. It also examines how three communities cooperate in the provision of police and public works services. Interlocal cooperation can be defined as collaborative efforts undertaken by two or more communities. In this study, cooperation is looked at in terms of the provision of services. Such cooperation can be formal or informal, single function or multi-function, and supplementary or complete. In any case, it is seen as a means for improving the delivery of services. Local services are financed through property taxes. People, these days, are demanding cuts in their property taxes. At the same time, they continue to demand services. The pressure is on administrators to find ways to provide services more efficiently and effectively. Administrative and organizational constraints hamper efforts to cooperate formally. The administrators of service systems of ten have the power to make verbal agreements among themselves. Such agreements are more amenable to the variety of administrative and organizational conditions which exist in a group of conununities. As a result, it was iii iv not shocking to find that cooperative efforts undertaken by the three communities examined are primarily informal. Informal cooperation has its place and communities should cooperate with one another in the delivery of services in whatever formal or informal manner their organizational and administrative situations necessitate. ,

Interlocal cooperation can be defined as collaborative efforts undertaken by two or more communities.
In this study, cooperation is looked at in terms of the provision of services. Such cooperation can be formal or informal, single function or multi-function, and supplementary or complete.
In any case, it is seen as a means for improving the delivery of services.
Local services are financed through property taxes.
People, these days, are demanding cuts in their property taxes. At the same time, they continue to demand services.
The pressure is on administrators to find ways to provide services more efficiently and effectively.
Administrative and organizational constraints hamper efforts to cooperate formally. The administrators of service systems of ten have the power to make verbal agreements among themselves. Such agreements are more amenable to the variety of administrative and organizational conditions which exist in a group of conununities. As a result, it was iii iv not shocking to find that cooperative efforts undertaken by the three communities examined are primarily informal.
Informal cooperation has its place and communities should cooperate with one another in the delivery of services in whatever formal or informal manner their organizational and administrative situations necessitate. ,  These agreements provide communities with a mechanism allowing them to jointly exercise powers in the delivery of services, formerly and solely the authority of local governments. They can be used to allow communities to jointly undertake functions and responsibilities which they already could (and did) individually. They can also be used to allow communities to collectively purchase supplies and facilities.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The advantge of formal rather than informal is that formal agreements are legally secured, a written contract obligates all parties to participation. This becomes important when an organization is set up to coordinate and administer over a jointly needed service system. Each community has financial investments involved which they 2 may wish to protect. Sustained cooperation is necessary in order to protect investments. Formal agreements, such as legislation and contracts, prevent communities from "pulling out" unexpectedly.  purchase equipment, and determine the quantity and quality of service{s) they will deliver and the procedures or methods they will use to deliver them. They can exist for a single purpose (the provision of one service to communities) or for multiple purposes (the provision of several services).

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In Massachusetts, for example, the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) is an independent, multi-functional, partial, functionally oriented, cooperative service system.
It is an independent special district service organization.
It is not subject to scrutinization by local governments.
It owns the resources from which it provides services (such as reservoirs for culinary water) , and provides those services on a contract basis to individual communities. It provides a variety of services, such as water, sewerage, and parks and recreation. Its services are intended to supplement those systems already operated by local governments.
Some special district governments provide only supplementary services, such as the MDC. These organizations provide services over and above those already provided by local governments. The services they provide usually involve the meeting of multi-jurisdictional needs. For example, the MDC owns and operates a park system extending along the Charles River. This is a recreation service extending through many communities. The equity of regional service delivery systems is one of the things which is often questioned. Can such a system provide services impartially or fairly to all? Will some be favored and others forgotten? As the number of people being served increases, and as service delivery systems grow to meet their collective needs, can justice to done to individual needs or the needs of small groups within the region.
The question could be directed toward individual communities. Are separate local service systems equitable? One of the functions of the level of services a community provides is its wealth, or the wealth of its residents. Therefore, it follows that there is a tendency for wealthier communities to spend more on services than those who are not as financially secure.
Areawide delivery of services could increase equity within a region. It could do so by doubling as a mechanism for the redistribution of wealth. Communities who participate in cooperative arrangements usually do so for benefits.
Wealthier communities could subsidize the extra services for poorer ones if three conditions existed.
The wealthier communities desire a higher level of services than the poorer ones.
Only one level of services are to be provided throughout the region. The poorer communities couldn't pay for more than a level which is significantly lower than that desired by the wealthy. They would probably do this, too, if the amount they were saving by being part of the cooperative system were greater than the subsidy they had to pay.
The economic efficiency of cooperative systems is another issue. Will such a system increase economic efficiency; or, will it, in fact, decrease efficiency because it increases the complexity of administrative interrelationships? The theory of economies of scale suggests that it will increase economic efficiency; however, other theories suggest that the new bureaucracy which is created, will, in fact, decrease efficiency, reducing or eliminating benefits from economies of scale. One such theory is from the field of political science. It deals with administrative spans of control.
As an organization or administrative unit becomes larger, hiatuses develop in the chain of command. These gaps between superiors and subordinates grow as an agency gets larger. As they do, administrative  Neighborhood organizations, as smaller, somewhat more homogeneous groups of people are seen as a way to make policy decisions relevant and to give municipal service systems a definable unit to which to tailor service delivery.

The Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental
Relations has given a word of caution to localities considering consolidation or centralization of functions. It sums up the major concerns of this issue.
Every Unit of government should be responsible for a sufficient number of functions so that its governing processes involve a resolution of conflicting interest, with sufficient responsibility for balancing governmental needs and resources.
Thus, in the dµrisdictional allocation of individual functions, there is an ever present danger of creating so many separate entities as to result in undemocratic, inequitable, and inadequate assignment of priorities.5 The potential economies from centralization should be viewed carefully.
Centralization itself has costs, and they tend to increase as centralization becomes extensive. Any function can be centralized. However, there is a point where economies gained through centralization begin to diminish and eventually become diseconomies.
Even so, centralization does allow a grouping of activities,  (2) the necessity of political proximity.
It was found that important scale economies could be expected from eight of the eighteen services considered.
The second criteria was the proximity of people to the bureaucracy of the individual service system and to the general governmental bodies which make policies for the individual systems. It was found that close proximity of the people to the government was particularly important with six services. There were eight services where political proximity was found to be of little consequence.
With the remaining four services it was found that closeness of the people to the government was important sometimes and not other times. Of the eighteen services considered, in only ten could major spillover benefits be expected; and, with only six    of the eighteen did income redistribution play an important role.

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The Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations has also studied interlocal cooperation. A part of their study, somewhat applicable, is the reasons communities gave for participating or not participating in regional councils (formal cooperative organizations).
They asked a set of questions of local governments regarding why they participated in the formation of regional councils (see Table 3). The most important reason given by the communities sampled was to initiate cooperative approaches to solving regional problems. A second survey was done questioning why communities joined regional councils (see Table 4). A similar reason was most frequently given as most important. The second most important reason given for participating in regional councils (in both surveys) was that it was necessary to obtain Federal funds. A pattern of responses to these surveys and the two most important reasons for participating in regional councils was recognized by the Advisory  Respondents were asked to rank in order of importance the three major reasons that their regional council was formed (one being the most important reason, 2 and 3 being the next most important reasons.) N *"' Respondents were asked to rank in order of importance the three major reasons why their regional council was formed (one being the most important reason; 2 and 3 the next most important reasons).
Another survey was undertaken to determine why communities did not participate in regional councils (see Table 5). The most important reason given was that they are too often dominated by the largest communities.
This reason was closely followed by three others: the planning and delivery of services were thought to be 26 better performed at the local level; such organizations caused unnecessary administrative delays to Federal funding of local programs; and, the councils were seen as too costly to local taxpayers.
Several inferences might be gained from the responses to these three surveys. First, communities seem to be interested in working with one another.
While Federal programs have induced larger communities into undertaking cooperative ventures when they might not have otherwise done so, smaller communities indicated that they were primarily motivated by a desire to solve their individual problems, as well as the problems of their neighbors. Second, the majority of communities see regional council as an arena or forum in which cooperation can be initiated.
Would these same communities who indicated that their primary reason for participating in a formal organization was to meet local needs on an areawide basis join together with one another if there were no formal mechanisms facilitating it? One of the surveys did indicate that

SOURCE:
The Advisor¥ Commission in Intergovernmental Relations Regional Decision Making: New Strategies for Substate Districts. IV ~ about twenty percent of the respondents were participating in formal cooperative arrangements before joining a regional council. It is unclear from the summary of the survey whether the twenty percent joined a regional council because they outgrew their informal arrangements or because they had other problems with the agreements which could only be corrected by formalizing them.
The following section is an examination of cooperation among three communities. They are all participating in informal ~greements which they make as a need arises; and, they have indicated that they have had no problems resulting from the fact that they are not cooperating formally.
III.     (7) Highway   It also has a combined water-sewer division and the engineering function is a division of the department of public works, as they are in Natick. However, in addition to these divisions it also has a park division and an electrical division. The park division is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the town's parks. The electrical division generates and distributes electricity.

INTERLOCAL COOPERATION AND THE
It also installs, maintains and repairs traffic signals, fire alarms and police communications.
The department has a general director and an assistant director who is also the town engineer (like Natick).
Like the public works departments in Natick and Framingham, Wellesley's has an administrative staff segment, office functions, which they call the financial branch. Each division within the department of public works has a superintendent with the exception of the park division which has a general foreman. Wellesley's department of public works seems to be similar to Framingham's in that there are many supervisors. The highway division, for example, has a superintendent, an assistant superintendent, two general foremen and four working foremen to coordinate the work of only thirty-nine workers.
The public works departments of the three towns vary in the services they deliver and in their organizational management. Table 6 is a comparison of the services each delivers. A formalized cooperative system of public works services with a centralized bureaucracy would require  The investigation division is divided by function. It includes a detective and rape unit, a juvenile unit, photo and identification unit, and a legal unit. Figure 8 shows the organization of the Framingham Police Department.
Natick's police department has a somewhat similar hierarchy (see Figure 9). There is a chief and an A formal collaborativ e effort was attempted on the 14 county level.
''It started out big but fissled out." Suffolk County is attempting to initiate a formal information exchange. Instead of bringing individuals together it will require monthly reports and redistribute them to each department within the county. This will provide a regular exchange of information and the organizations will facilitate face to face interaction. The officers interviewed felt that no other formal mechanisms or institutional structures were necessary.
A formal centralized police department, a regional organization to facilitate interlocal interaction and to gain benefits from economies of scale seems to be both unnecessary (as far as facilitating interaction) and legislatively difficult (because of the geographical limitations on powers of officers tives desirable of a cooperative system (see Table 7).
The Commission compares informal cooperation with other mechanisms and summarizes their conclusions in a chart.
The chart is a continuum showing the effectiveness of areawide service delivery approaches versus their feasi-55 bility or political acceptibility (see Figure 10). It says that informal cooperation is the most politically feasible of thirteen alternatives; but at the same time, it is the least effective. 15 It is true that informal cooperation does not respect the criteria of an areawide service delivery system, criteria which communities should try to meet when setting up a system. However, the nature of informal cooperation is different from other, more formal, cooperative systems.
Formal systems are comprehensive approaches to meeting service needs. They are a mechanism prepared for most of the possible areawide problems (or needs) a system might be confronted with in its future. Informal cooperation is an incremental approach to meeting service needs. It allows communities to face problems (or needs) as they arise. It allows communities to more efficiently and effectively use their present service systems, to compensate for their inadequacies.