A Twin Cities group studying ways to combine services such as fire and police is looking for a little help from the state.

Co-chairmen Donna Steckino and Robert Clifford said the group is applying for a grant from the state Fund for the Efficient Delivery of Local and Regional Services. They would use that money to hire staff.

“Right now, we’re in the very early stages, gathering information and looking at how we want to proceed,” Clifford said. What the group ends up doing depends on if they have staff or if members do all the work on their own. They won’t know if they have staff until they get an answer on the grant, Clifford said.

That fund was created by Gov. John Baldacci in November to encourage more frugal city and county services. Jim Andrews, Lewiston’s economic development director, said the two cities can get up to $200,000 to help fund the cooperation group.

Steckino said she expects a decision on the grant early next year.

The 10-member committee began meeting in late October. Its job is to review services in each city and to issue a plan to combine some of them. Sharing could range from buying office supplies jointly to combining police or fire departments. The group will use a 1996 report, L/A Together, as background.

It will be up to councilors to adopt the commission’s findings.

The group has met several times, interviewing both Auburn City Manager Pat Finnigan and Lewiston City Administrator Jim Bennett, past city leaders and members of the original L/A Together group.

“We’re still at the unsexy, information-gathering stage, until we get closer to the end,” he said. “When we talked to the city managers, and the ex-city managers, we learned a lot. So it has been very informative, but very general at this point.”

There are similarities between the work of the cooperative group and of the city of Auburn’s Charter Commission. Both are considering changes to the way city government operates, and both began working within a nine-month schedule.

But while the Charter Commission’s schedule is set by law, Clifford said his more informal group might need more time.

“The Charter Commission isn’t starting from scratch,” Clifford said. “They have something written to tinker with. We don’t.”