Bravo to the city of Lewiston and its pending consolidation of school and municipal human resource offices.

The move will save money, and it’s the type of common-sense, business-like decision we have been advocating for 10 years.

But the official explanation still reminds us that saving money for taxpayers takes a back seat to preserving jobs at City Hall.

Tom Jarvis, human resources director for Lewiston schools, explained that the consolidation opportunity arose when longtime Lewiston Human Resources Director Denis Jean retired last winter and his $80,000 position was not filled.

His duties landed on Deputy City Administrator Phil Nadeau. Only then was the city sufficiently motivated to work more efficiently.

Reading between the lines, this is something that could have been done five or 10 years ago, but the city was waiting on a retirement to occur.

And that’s the difference between working in government and in the private sector. When a large business consolidates operations, it uses technology and economies of scale to save money.

Good employees are then used in other ways or the work force is reduced.

We’ve been urging that sort of consolidation of services between Lewiston and Auburn for at least a decade.

And there have been some successes over the years, including a jointly operated airport, water/sewer systems and an economic development office.

Beyond those obvious areas, the pace of other meaningful consolidation between cities has been glacial. The Auburn City Council even announced two years ago that consolidating services was a waste of time.

That, of course, flew in the face of a detailed study completed in 2008 showing not only how much money could be saved but how it could be done.

The study was done using employees from both sides of the river and a professional consultant. It was dismissed by a handful of newly elected Auburn city councilors who thought they knew better.

Ironically, internal consolidation has been foisted upon the city of Auburn over the past two years as the Legislature cut revenue-sharing to local communities.

Auburn City Manager Glenn Aho has responded by creating teams and eliminating administrative jobs.

But services have been cut, as well. Auburn now offers recycling twice a month, rather than weekly. It is slower to clean up after snowstorms, and the municipal swimming beach has no lifeguards.

But how many of those service cuts and reductions might have been avoided if the two cities had aggressively pursued some of the consolidation strategies years ago?

We’ll never know.

Again, it’s great that Lewiston is consolidating its HR services.

Still, we have to believe that even greater savings could be achieved if the elected leadership on each side of the river was committed to doing so.

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