SERVICE SHARING AGREEMENTS

This page provides examples of various service sharing agreements and arrangements that exist within Newfoundland and Labrador.

In Somerset County, the Somerset County Municipal Managers Association (SCMMA), a professional association of municipal administrators working with the Somerset County Business Partnership (SCBP), is focusing on identifying the “roadblocks” that are inhibiting municipalities from furthering shared services with other towns, the school districts and the county. Somerset County’s towns have created a model shared services network that has experienced outstanding and unparalleled success. However, it is the belief of the SCMMA and the SCBP that the more reachable areas to facilitate sharing have been accomplished and, at this point, “all the low fruit has been picked.” The obstacles that stand before municipalities are the significant legislative barriers that inhibit bringing shared services to the next level. This white paper makes an attempt to identify the “roadblocks” and to actively push for meaningful legislation that will streamline and facilitate the expansion of shared services.

Municipal governments are less likely to contract out for service delivery if citizen preferences for the service are heterogeneous. This conclusion is based on an analysis that extends to the public sector the empirical industrial organization literature on transaction costs and the “make or buy” decision faced by private firms. Service delivery practices for sixty-three municipal services are examined. The findings are consistent with the proposition that the cost of writing and monitoring contracts may be an important consideration in municipal service delivery approach and that bureaucratic supply may not be as inefficient as some previous studies indicate.

This newsletter speaks about the various shared services initiatives throughout Luzerne County in Pennsylvania and speaks specifically about the police departments initiatives. Shared service success stories such as the police department and recreation parks are also explored and expanded upon. The newsletter describes the fire department’s initiatives with shared services.

In recent years, analysts have begun to study cooperation on public services among local governments. These studies often have concluded that services with scale economies are likely candidates for shared service delivery. This article contributes to the emerging literature on this topic by examining inter-local service arrangements for 10 public works services in Michigan. The authors use data on the service delivery arrangements from 468 general-purpose local governments in Michigan to examine the role played by the factors in explaining inter-local cooperation on public works.