FARMINGTON – A statewide county commissioners association is looking to strengthen the role of county government in providing critical services to the public.

“The end result most of us are seeking is a strong statewide county association with a credible voice in Augusta representing all aspects of county government, and to create a proactive initiative to move counties into a new level of authority in Maine,” said Anne Beebe-Center, a Knox County commissioner and a director of the Maine County Commissioners Association.

She and other association directors are traveling to the 16 counties around the state to get feedback on the effort.

Beebe-Center said commissioners held a retreat in 2007.

“What they decided during the retreat was to strengthen their voice collectively and to be more proactive,” she said.

County government is the least understood and the least respected, Beebe-Center said.

New England is the only region that does not use county government to provide regional services such as police, fire and public health, she said.

“Counties, because they are local regional governments, should be the natural vehicle for that,” she said.

“The fact that we are not truly considered tells us we are not positioned as we should be in the public’s mind and in particular, our legislators’ minds.”

The counties need to work better together to meet needs such as training, she said. Counties were not positioned to offer alternatives in the state’s effort to reorganize county jails to come under the state’s jurisdiction, she said, even though they knew it in advance.

“Counties were in reactive mode opposed to proactive mode,” she said.

“To people it doesn’t matter what we call ourselves, it is how we are constructed and how we move forward to build upon what we have,” Beebe-Center said. The consensus of counties she has visited is to strengthen the commissioners association, she said, and they favor hiring an executive director and including all county departments.

“What is important,” she said, “is how we structure ourselves. We can go it alone or include all other departments. Basically we can control our future or have our future controlled by the Legislature.”

Commissioner Fred Hardy of New Sharon, who is not in favor of the state’s control over county jails because he says it will cost taxpayers more money, said he didn’t think they needed to establish a new organization to get things done, but maybe involve more people.

“If the state did business as well as towns and the county does, we wouldn’t have this mess,” Hardy said.

Commissioner Gary McGrane of Jay said the commissioners association is moving forward as is but like any organization could do better.