Live from your public media studios wdia presents Keystone addition reports a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in NorthEastern and Central Pennsylvania This is Keystone addition reports and now moderator Larry void go Hello i'm Larry for to go with shrinking budgets and as positions become hard to fill some municipalities are starting to think of regionalisation as a way to cut costs while still serving the community but what is regionalisation and does it work and what has to happen to make it work We have experts here to answer all those questions and more Call 1 800 3269 eight for two send an email to Keystone wdia dot org or tags on social with a hashtag Keystone reports W va ice Paul azhar tsar takes a closer look at what defines regionalisation and some of its benefits how can regionalisation help communities in northeast p a regionalization is where municipalities come together and share resources for the greater good economic development tourism and transportation are all areas where regionalization can help But what defines a region in general The answer is whatever problem needs to be solved For example if a few communities have trouble getting adequate police were fired coverage they'll form a region to pool their resources transportation and public works are other areas where regionalisation may help one community may not have enough resources whether it's people finances or equipment but by joining with other similar communities they can help maintain each other's roads and parks or buses can travel among the different communities which will boost all of their economies however one criticism of regionalisation is that people want their tax dollars to stay in their own community rather than be used to help a neighboring one for Keystone Edition reports i'm Paul lewis ah well now we need to hear from you We're ready to take your calls 1 800 3269 aid for too You can also e-mail Keystone wdia dawg or messages through our social channels using the hashtag Keystone reports Well let's welcome our guests who are here to share their expertise joining us here the studio is terry ohms executive director of the institute on public policy and economic development charles mcelwee is joining us He's a writer for real clear politics and chief chris wagner is joins us on zoom He works for the pokeno mountain region regional police department a regional forest that's been in action now for more than two decades well welcome to you all And i'm going to start with you Chief wagner as an example of a successful implementation of regionalization Can you give us an idea about the origins of the department what factors led the The leaders at that time to make that move into a regional police department You're so in 1994 the program on regional police department was formed with the of the toby township police department and the amount pocono bureau police department at the time mount popenoe burrow had three employees and one part time employee and they were a part time agency whereby they turned over coverage to the Pennsylvania state police police during the midnight hours so generally 11:00 p m to seven a m and really what the two municipalities we're looking to do was to consolidate resources whereby combining both the tobyhanna township force with an outspoken of force allowed mount pokeno burrow to become a full time agency whereby they had local police coverage 24 hours a day and it was just ability to pull those resources to better enhance the safety of their community So that's over twenty five years ago now are there more community is now within the regional police department absolutely so as mentioned we started with those those initial too municipalities toby in a township amount popenoe burrow A year after they formed ton cannot township join the regional which that is the township that covers the poking raceway than a year after that coolbaugh township joined now And while in 2015 barrett township join the regional concept and so we're now at for townships and the bureau and we now call cover approximately two hundred thirty eight square miles Give us a quick overview of the governance of the department who is in charge to whom do you report so the way it works at pocono mountains regional is they formed the poking around regional police commission That is the regional department is governing body now the way that works is depending on how much coverage a municipality contracts the department for really determines how much representation they have on the police commission so some of the larger municipalities with more please coverage have up to three representatives while the smaller the smallest township has one representative a total eleven in number So we obviously wanted to try to keep it at an odd number thereby any any action items that were maybe in dispute we would have a tie breaking vote fortunately we really haven't come into that as much with the governing body It really is a a well functioning group that gets along and you know again it's based on a representation model Now you have been you know i've been with the department overall this entire time From the time it began as regionalisation effort Have you seen at a drawbacks in this at all you know there's pros and cons to everything you know mainly the concerns that are expressed with regionalizing especially you see you know since we are so fresh with the barrett township joinder is there is a sense of maybe a loss of of of local control over the police department There's some concern that you know if there's a particular officer in the community that is is really well respected and well like that they won't see that officer as much You know I always try to to express the viewpoint that you're not losing those officers which are what you're doing here is your gaining the additional officers with the current regional force those officers that are you know local to one municipality we'll still be be patrolling and servicing that municipality but now they'll bring in additional officers as well Well let's bring terry omc executive director of the institute into the conversation and you have experience with various aspects of regionalization when other drawbacks have you come across or you know a certain challenges or certain hurdles that you have to cross when advising advising organizations whether to regionalize or not Well it usually depends on the leaders that are organizing from the various communities are departments or organizations and how they came to the table Did they come is willing participants or were they sort of coercion coerced someone in into joining There's there's always the fear and some of the work that we've been involved with where there's this loss of power and control and really it depends on how the group works together and has a willingness to share control and then you see the positive benefits from that shared relationship What we always talk about is if you're going into this to just save money you may not see that for the short term or at all Because as you regionalize if it's a formal regional govern in system or government or authority you have start up costs just like any other business but the bottom line is in the end as time goes on the consumer which is your taxes taxpayer your resident gets better services and that's really the ultimate goal because there is economies of scale at that point you know in the past we used to talk about training for police officers and firefighters are certain types of equipment Now we're talking about workforce in general because there's a huge work for shortage across the country in every sector at every skill level and in order to maintain police departments fire departments and the like you need the bodies And so the only way that's going to work is if you work together you know sort of have been wondering for many decades about NorthEastern Pennsylvania and why it is not thriving more I mean because of its location it's it's perfectly suited near the highways and charles I'll go to you too To comment on this You know we have the susquehanna river of a major waterway where we have proximity to new york city to philadelphia you know ken Ken regionalization be an answer to this or why why NorthEastern Pennsylvania is not thriving as well as some think it should I think regionalization needs to be viewed from an economic development perspective and was crucial here is that in NorthEastern Pennsylvania historically it's a region once driven by the anthracite coal industry and the garment industry then replay spy in many ways local governments school districts industrial parks but we have a long history of not working together in the scranton wilkes-barre hazleton corridor That's driven in part by the fact that it is a large region that's To some extent culturally fractious despite that shared anthracite coal heritage and in many ways the region which has had dramatic changes in the past 20 years I mean in many ways in terms of economics demography the region has changed at a faster extent than it has in the previous 50 to 75 years and if anything the corridor considering its location I believe needs to look look to other regions to understand what needs to be done to thrive and prepare itself for continue change and what region shall we look toward the lehigh valley in my view is not only a statewide model for regions for our Pennsylvania understand how to coordinate but certainly for NorthEastern Pennsylvania as well Now this is a region that's not far from the from NorthEastern Pennsylvania and really the lehigh valley success is driven by the fact that embrace regionalisation from an economic development perspective I have a story coming out in the forthcoming windsor issue of city journal about that success and what happened was after world war two as early as then went bethlehem steel was employing 11000 people in that region the local civic leaders realize that they needed to prepare for the day that steel could go away and by the 1980s and early 90s local civic and corporate leaders realize that that was going to happen and as a result they understood that the 62 municipality's and three cities allentown bethlehem easton could not go with a loan as it's almost like independent five times with many economic development agencies and municipality's figuring it out if bethlehem steel closed which is exactly what happens in 1995 but by then the lehigh valley economic development corporation had forms and that was driven through local leaders embracing regionalisation and as a result in by 2001 when bethlehem steel had declare bankruptcy they were prepared to embrace industrial development and today what we're seeing is a region two counties northhampton and we lehigh with a forty three billion dollar gdp when the fastest growing areas in america is an economic powerhouse and in many ways america's supply chain empire but the problem is it's now max out that warehousing and logistics industry there scarce land that they're looking elsewhere and what we're seeing NorthEastern Pennsylvania is that warehousing would just six driven industrial development is occurring here and the seventy eighty eighty one corridor is now america's epicenter for that growth and if anything scranton wilkes-barre hazleton and pottsville really need to work together to be prepared for what will be a transformative experience economy in the coming decade or so so terry The regions that are sometimes defined by defined by problems and trying to solve a problem problem sometimes are defined by an opportunity Correct correct and what we've noted in our research when I came here to work for the institute I saw that there would be a bigger benefit to approaching problem solving and opportunities on a regional basis It's what I practiced in economic development in california and I thought it would benefit here because at the time when I looked at the data I saw so many parallels between what was happening on the west coast in here so we produce the the regions annual indicators report and we specifically benchmark lock wanted and luzerne county separately on one hundred and twenty five different metrics trended over time to show the common patterns the same assets the same opportunities the same challenges in an effort to try and convinced our elected officials nonprofit organizations all regional stakeholders about the benefits of working together to harness those opportunities in mitigate those challenges because there is economies of scale there and it can be more effective if we work together and i'm just hopeful that the more information we share especially with our elected officials at all levels that we understand that they have geographic and political boundaries that the people they represent don't I don't think there's any person that can say they live work and do all of their their shopping in one community let alone one county anymore so times have changed and we have to harness now these opportunities these changing times to upgrade advance innovate to solve problems and to take advantage of the opportunities to charles is right were next in line We've already seen massive growth We're going to continue to see growth and now that there's a national workforce shortage We're competing for labor with every other region community county state across the country so in an effort to make sure that we have a good quality of life from all different aspects We have to be a step ahead And I think we could achieve that through better collaboration well it still is a matter of of a problem that often pushes the The organizers the citizens the leaders the stakeholders to consider regionalisation financial pressures and I want to go to chief wagner and chief Can you give us an idea of how the police department is is currently funded who are so we are funded through what's called a p p you system which is a police protection unit to break it down and really put it in a nutshell is we take our overall expenses and we divide it by the amount of officers that we have now once we get to that that comes to what's called the police protection unit which is basically 10 hours of service per week weak So if you think about it a lot of people want to think about well how much does it cost for us to hire an officer so generally where poking around regional police that right now if a municipality were to request 40 additional hours per week which is one officer that would cost roughly around one hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year so a lot of times that comes with sticker shock but you know again you can't look at it as that you're buying an officer with those 40 hours because what's included in those 40 hours is all the associated overhead So it would be the purchase of vehicles gasoline prices the cost of electricity right down to paper clips So again it's that total expenses divided by the amount of officers for higher So what do you mean this policy will do as they will say ok well we would like to contract for say four hundred and twenty or four hundred and fifty hours and then we figure out what that people you number is and they are invoiced and that's really kind of the way it works well I want to stay with you for just a moment but we're running quickly out of time and for the viewers if you have a question or comment please give us a call eight four too but chief you at the department also has an ancillary source of funding There's a foundation that setup tell us about that correct So you put them on regional police foundation was formed in order to really close some gaps with our budget so some of the items that may not be able to be placed in a line item on a budget that foundation really steps up and provides that additional source of funding to cover such things that you know we just can't Ordinarily put in a budget things like the canine program we have a bicycle patrol We have a motorcycle patrol We have an honor guard They also do a lot of assistance in funding with our criminal investigations unit so there's no there's little things and for an example or criminal investigators had approached me and they were looking to to purchase a faraday box which is used in the really in the examination of cellular devices faraday box You know it costs about three thirty five hundred dollars three thousand dollars now hadn't been placed in the budget and that was one of the gaps that the foundation was willing to step forward and and assist us in that purchase so they you know again they will close those gaps throughout the year that just weren't either for foreseen or weren't available to be placed in a line item I have a question for you Chief wagner from from a viewer how do collective bargaining agreements with different municipalities play a part in regionalisation efforts so that is a huge part of if two years parodies with existing police departments come into a joinder obviously you have to make that those collective bargaining agreements mesh generally what i've seen what the public mountain regional please has done is you know since were established the officers that come over generally will join into our collective bargaining agreement normally what I found is that the benefits and those cba is or pretty comparable so again but that is part of the selling point So one of the one of the drawbacks that you do see in regionalisation is that resistance to change and that won't come only from citizens and and the political aspect of regionalisation but it was also come from the existing police officers that are looking to come into a joinder so those those collective bargaining agreements are very important and making sure that you know everybody is satisfied with those agreements Well there are a number of proposals that are on the table in Pennsylvania one is is in the west side of lamming valley Right now they might even be discussing it tonight about a regional department called wyoming area regional police department with wyoming west wyoming exeter exeter township west pittston and charles makkawi deep Do you have any other examples of proposals that are on the table or other regional regionalisation activities in terms of regionalization when it comes to municipal consolidation or mergers that they're quite rare in mid 1970s the Pennsylvania state legislature set in place the process for municipal initiative and voter referendums to allow me to support the midst of how the the residents to vote on whether to merge or consolidate but if you look through the decades it rarely happens if anything it's a lesson in Pennsylvania in the sense of where a very traditional state and at the end of the day residents of any given community that are quite attached to their hometowns and therefore reluctant to see those mergers acquitted nations happened One example would be in 1982 clark screen the clock clark summit There was a voter referendum to merge the voters soundly rejected it If anything these regionalisation efforts or municipal court consolidation or mergers our most successful in communities that are more prosperous for example why and missing and why missing hills successfully in 2001 and berks county They're both prosperous suburbs of redding but if anything it's quite rare to see this happen but I just think it's gets a reflection of the state that we live in we're a traditional state somewhat adverse or averse to change and therefore regionalization seems to be more of a challenge in many instances so many of us are a little adverse to change I would think I found an interesting The fact of with a twenty twenty census They found that three quarters of the nation's residents of in the in the the nation live in towns of less than five thousand So given the state of affairs regionalization is something I think we're going to have to consider in the future and terry If if a group of from from communities are interested in exploring regionalisation you know where can they work in the state holders holder's find more information what should they do Well I think there's a lot of conversations that have to occur members of the state legislature represent them can sometimes be hopeful in having them security funding for a consultant to help do some planning they can look at case studies of other communities that have successfully completed mergers or consolidations or shared service agreements things like that Getting the data is is important behind any decision making and then they need to sit down collectively and have some candid discussions and that's where a facilitator or plan or can come into play and help guide those discussions along I did find also that the Pennsylvania department of community and economic development has actually a regional planning resource and you could find that on on their web site and i'm going to put chief wagner on the spot right now so so if there's a police police forces out there thinking of regionalisation could they call you For some advice absolutely You know again I How about twenty eight years of experience with the regional concept and you know i'm a i'm a true believer believer in it I really think that it benefits our communities the consolidation of those resources and the amount of police expertise that can be gained by combining those those overall experiences of officers from say municipality municipality be I think it's just a fantastic resource and I would be happy to help any municipalities that are looking into it Well we've been talking about police forces firefighters and also economic development but very quickly in about 30 seconds terry What other areas can regionalisation play an important part transportation as a key driver having a regional transportation authority and lock one analysts are in county to cover the mass transit the rail in the airport would be incredible If you stand on that county line at eight o'clock in the morning and you watch the traffic going back and forth You know that that we share a labor force so transportation and that collaboration and education yep education as well and many other one a social services Well we're running out of time and I would just like to think thank our panelists for participating Thank you for joining us now for more information please visit wdia dawg slash Keystone reports and remember you can read watch this episode on-demand anytime online or on the wdia app for Keystone Edition i'm Larry void Go Thanks so much for watching