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Fire Protection is Most-Shared Local Service: Least-Shared Services

Posted on: Monday, 17 April 2006, 03:03 CDT

By Amy Rinard, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Apr. 17--Fire protection is the service most shared communities in southeastern Wisconsin and human resources the least shared, according to a new survey of the seven-county area.

But as more municipalities discuss entering into shared service agreements with neighboring communities, the Public Policy Forum report notes a lack of reliable public information on which kind of agreements work and which don't.

"The Forum challenges local policy-makers to evaluate their existing intergovernmental agreements, catalog them, and share their results good or bad," the report concludes.

In an effort to start this catalog, forum researchers sent surveys to Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Ozaukee, Washington, Kenosha and Walworth counties and all the cities, villages and towns in those counties.

Of the 175 surveys sent, there were 63 valid responses.

The report says this survey, although far from complete, represents the best available data on the extent of shared service agreements in southeastern Wisconsin.

The data shows that among the 63 municipalities that responded, there were 145 shared service agreements.

Twenty-three of the respondents have agreements with one municipality; the majority have agreements with more than one neighboring community. Eleven respondents said they had four such agreements.

Fire protection was the most reported service shared with other municipalities, with 78% of the respondents saying they shared fire service with at least one other municipality. Other emergency services, such as emergency medical services, were the next highest, with 69% of communities reporting some shared emergency service.

Library services were reported shared 51% of respondents, followed law enforcement, 37%, and animal control, 34%.

The least-shared services are human resources and public housing, with only one municipality reporting that it shared each of these services.

In Waukesha County, talks about a fire department merger continue among officials from Delafield, Nashotah, Merton, Chenequa, Sussex and Hartland.

Nashotah President Richard Lartz, who was one of the municipal leaders who initiated the talks, said Friday that the group is awaiting feedback from the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, which is working with the municipal officials to provide information that could lay the groundwork for a merger.

Lartz said he is optimistic that the talks will result in some type of shared services agreement.

"Will we be a full-blown merged department or a hybrid, I don't know," he said. "But something will come out of this."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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