While Connecticut’s system of 169 independent municipalities has its benefits, it also has disadvantages. The idea of regionalization, or the sharing of some services between one or more towns, has started to gain traction around the state as a way so save money and improve services and now that conversation has come to Guilford.

At the Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting on Nov. 5, Selectman Susan Renner said board members and town officials recently attended the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) convention. She said the event, for her, was a good reminder that regionalization needs to be a bigger conversation in town.

“The reason I bring it up is I felt a common theme that ran through a lot of the workshops we attended was the idea of regionalization and shared services between say the town and Board of Education and the town and other towns in order to improve efficiencies and reduce costs and in many cases improve the services we offer,” she said.

As state funds dwindle and municipalities closely watch their budgets and reserves, conversations around regionalizing services have begun to pop up with greater frequency. Regionalization doesn’t necessarily mean giving up local power.

“It came up a number of times today with something as simple as bidding the [town’s fuel purchases] and have we done that with other towns,” Renner said. “When you start just thinking with that mindset, I think there are a lot of opportunities of things we can look at.”

In Guilford, officials have looked at small steps like trying to combine the IT functions of the whole town rather than have separate IT functions for the town and the schools. Some other towns have had larger conversations around things like regionalizing police and fire dispatch services or entering joint purchasing agreements. Renner said everything needs to be on the table.

“I guess for a start we should always be asking the question—every time something new comes up, every time there is a position vacant due to a retirement, we should ask, ‘Is there a different way we can do this, can we combine this with something else?’” she said. “I don’t have any magic solutions, but I just wanted to bring this up.”

Renner said a part of the problem is that regionalization tends to only pop up during budget season when departments are trying to hold down expenses. Selectman Charlie Havrda said like with any potential change, regionalization can be difficult to talk about, but the more the concept is kept in the mainstream, the more affective and accepted it will become.

“We have to start the conversation as early in the project or process as possible so we are not down to two days before finalization and saying, ‘Oh why didn’t we think of this?’” he said. “…It’s a semi-culture shift really. You just have to give a little.”