Connecticut Legislator Tests The Waters on Whether CT Has Too Many Municipal Services

I’ve previously observed that one of Connecticut’s challenges, when it comes to taxes and government funding, is that we have too many towns inefficiently providing the same services.

The New Haven Independent has an article on a town hall meeting in which that concept was tested, ahead of news of an upcoming budget crunch in the state:

Connecticut has 169 municipalities. Sharkey told the group that this method of governance worked 300 years ago, but it isn’t working now.

“This small state we live in still maintains very firmly this idea that each town has to create its own form of taxation and each town has to create its own method for police, fire protection, education, public works, but the basic government we rely on is not the most efficient way to do this. We look around and know this,” he said, alluding to duplication in services and high budgets that are among the factors that drive high property taxes.  […]

“Who is against merging fire departments?” A group of hands went up. But not all.

What about police departments? Or boards of education?   “Right now,” said one woman, referring to the Branford Board of Education.

“Who is against that?” asked Sharkey. No hands went up, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t in the future. “I can guarantee you that there are a lot of people who might be against that, particularly with kids in school,” Sharkey said.

I still say that Connecticut should have kept the counties, and abolished the towns back in the 1920’s, rather than the other way around.  Maybe a few folks are starting to think that too.