It’s often easier than it looks. Some communities are saving thousands of dollars. Is yours?

It’s no easy task getting communities to work together – even close neighbors with common goals.

But it helps if there’s a wolf at the door.

For seven northern Maine communities, the Air National Guard and two neighboring colleges, that wolf came in the form of the federal Environmental Protection Agency and federal storm-water regulations.

Cooperation allowed the Bangor Area Storm Water Group to turn $84,259 in state grants into $347,000 in savings over two years.

Those federal storm-water rules had the same effect farther south, in Windham. There, 13 communities were able to turn state grants totaling $58,000 into $742,000 in savings.

But other efforts to get municipalities to work together and consolidate services that were bankrolled by the state’s Fund for the Efficient Delivery of Local and Regional Services didn’t fare so well.

Of the 40 projects paid for with the state’s money over two years, 11 were able to show dollar-for-dollar results or better. The Bangor and Windham storm-water efforts account for four of those successes – two in each round of funding. Dispatch consolidation efforts in Scarborough, Farmington and Yarmouth count for three others. Norway’s effort to get regional code enforcement services through the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments is another. Regional efforts around Pittsfield and Wiscasset to buy heavy equipment count for two more, and the 11th was Standish’s work to buy accounting software for itself and five neighbors .

For other efforts, like Lewiston-Auburn’s attempt to share city services, savings may be years down the line, if they happen at all. L-A’s work could save the cities $1.7 million over the next five years, but consolidation proposals still need City Council and popular support.

That support may be there now, according to Twin Cities cooperation proponents.

“For the first time in 13 years, it’s clear to me that policy leaders are spending the time and giving the attention they need to actually make this work,” said Peter Garcia, co-chairman of the Citizens’ Commission on Joint Lewiston-Auburn Cooperation. “We’re not done yet, but there is a political vision for making it happen. It’s up to the policymakers now, but they are actually at a point that they may make them work.”

But for others, savings simply won’t happen.

Take Androscoggin County’s own state-funded effort to create a countywide emergency dispatch service. While a state-mandated 2005 effort to reduce 911 call centers from four to two worked, a more ambitious effort to combine the county’s emergency dispatch service with Lewiston-Auburn 911 fell apart. There was no federal mandate to work together, just the promise of $38,000 in savings a year.

It all collapsed this summer, when a clear majority of small towns refused to share costs for radio dispatch services with the Twin Cities.

A similar effort in northern Cumberland County met the same skepticism, according to a report filed by the group earlier this year:

“We have encountered issues with territorial concerns. Individual communities are reluctant to consolidate to a county model due to prior experiences or fears of poor service.”

Cost savings, according to that report, are hard to forecast until local communities agree to work together.

Carrot or stick

That seems to be a key factor when neighboring towns try to join services. Efforts succeed when they must – when federal or state agencies require them or threaten to cut off money.

But just offering rewards – grants to hire consultants and write reports, and potential savings – doesn’t seem to pay off as well.

“If you have to choose between the carrot and the stick, the carrot is a softer method and I’m a fan,” said Laurie LaChance, director of the Maine Development Foundation. “The carrot gives people time to make more thoughtful choices. But the stick comes with economic reality. The stick seems to work better.”

The state has experimented with the carrot since 2005, creating the Fund for the Efficient Delivery of Local and Regional Services. That fund gave out $1.5 million over two rounds of funding to 40 different projects in the state aimed at creating regional recycling groups, property assessing efforts across multiple towns and joint purchasing programs designed to find municipal bargains.

Results have been mixed. According to the Maine Development Foundation’s Oct. 2007 report on the effort, nine of the 26 programs funded in the state’s first round showed positive results, saving a dollar or better for every dollar the state spent. Four showed some savings, but not dollar-for-dollar; 13 showed no savings at all.

In all, the first-round groups averaged a return of 91 cents for every dollar they received.

Although the second-round efforts saved more money – $1.48 for every dollar – fewer groups showed any results. Of the 14 programs to get a share of the state’s money in round two, two had positive savings: The Windham and Bangor storm-water groups. Nine others either had no savings or complained that skepticism among residents and elected officials doomed their projects. Four others didn’t even file progress reports with the state.

Bangor’s storm-water group is a clear fan of the fund.

“It certainly helped us get started and get our hats on straight,” said Veazie Town Assessor Allan Thomas, a founding member of the Bangor Area Storm Water Group.

As of 2007, Bangor and several smaller neighbors learned they needed to meet the EPA’s Pollution Discharge Elimination goals. That would involve thousands of dollars worth of spending per town for mapping, training and public education. It was a federal mandate; as a group or apart, the towns were required to do that work.

“Then, we have conservation law attorneys looking over our shoulder, making sure we got it all right,” Thomas said. “There really wasn’t any point in fighting it. We had to do it and we knew. And we knew it would be cheaper to do it together.”

Buoyed by two grants from the state totaling $84,259, the group – the city of Bangor, the towns of Brewer, Hampden, Milford, Old Town, Orono, Veazie, the Maine Air National Guard, the University of Maine at Orono and University College of Bangor – set aside their differences and began hashing out a plan.

They’ve gotten great results, saving an estimated $347,000 over two years.

“There was no territorialism, no fighting. There just wasn’t any point,” Thomas said. “We had federal and state agencies looking over our shoulder. We had to act. We had to spend money, so we just tried to minimize it.”

LaChance said it’s no surprise that the storm-water efforts paid off so well, and so quickly.

“There are federal mandates each town has to meet, and no single town is equipped to make it on their own,” she said. “It’s relatively new, so there is no community identity around how they should respond. Besides, storm water runs from community to community. It’s not a single town’s problem, and it behooves them all to work together.”

That doesn’t mean using a carrot can’t work also.

“There is a risk in paying for this kind of collaboration that not all of the projects funded will succeed,” she said. “But I think it’s imperative that communities continue to try. There is infinite pressure to cut budgets and to preserve services.”

And regionalization may still be the best way to do that.

“In the end, I think that economic reality may be the biggest stick of all,” she said. “The economy is going to force communities to deal with this, whether they want to or not. I think that’s going to occur naturally.”

State-funded cooperation efforts

Return on Investment

For every dollar of state money received to help initiate consolidation efforts, towns and cities realized the following savings or losses.

• $1.10: Average return for all 40 projects, 2006-08

• $0.91: Average return for all of the 26 Phase 1 projects, 2006-07

• $1.48: Average return for all of the 14 Phase 2 projects, 2007-08

What consolidation works quickly, what doesn’t

Municipal savings by category, per dollar of state money received to initiate consolidation efforts:

• $7.66: Storm water projects(Two projects in round one, two in round two)

• $1.15: Code enforcement (one in round one)

• $1.03: Joint dispatch/emergency services (six in round one, three in round two)

• $0.53: Accounting and finance (three in round one)

• $0.31: Large equipment purchasing (five in round one)

• $0.21: Joint assessing (three in round one, one in round two)

• $0: Joint purchasing, consolidation, joint sewer, emergency vehicle repair center, regional development and recycling/solid waste.

Source: Maine Development Foundation Final Report, Fund for Efficient Delivery of Local and Regional Services; State of Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services.