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The Brookings Institution: Metropolitan Policy
Distinctive, Equitable, Competitive (Louisville) is a review of the early results of the successful consolidation effort in Louisville, Kentucky. An older report titled Beyond Merger: A Competitive Vision for the Regional City of Louisville studies the trends and challenges that the consolidated city faces.
The Brookings Institution: Metropolitan Policy
Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution presented a speech called “Transforming Metropolitan Governance in Syracuse: A Roadmap for Prosperity” to the Onondaga Citizens League on Mary 17, 2006. The speech focused on the need for metropolitan government reform and regionalism as necessary for economic competitiveness.
Center for Governmental Research Inc.: Reports
The Center for Governmental Research completed the study, Thinking Beyond Boundries: Opportunities to Use Regional and Local Strategies to Strengthen Public Education in the Broome-Tioga Region, in 2005 for Broome-Tioga BOCES. CGR studied expenditures for fifteen school districts to look for ways to cooperate or collaborate to save money.
Community and Rural Development Institute at Cornell University: Cornell Local Government Program
The Program has produced a number of reports that study local government structure and operation in New York State. Several reports specifically address shared services including Enhancing Cooperation in Highway Services and Fiscal Impacts and Municipal Options. Of particular interest is a report entitled the Wellsville Town-Village Municipal Study Final Report that studies in depth the Town and Village of Wellsville general fund budgets and recommends specific actions for cost savings. The report studies the potential cost savings from several different municipal arrangements including sharing services, a coterminous town-village arrangement, and village dissolution.
Cornell University Department of City and Regional Planning: Local Government Restructuring in New York State: Summary of Results
This page describes the results of a survey that was completed by 26 counties and 196 towns in New York State. They survey solicited information from government officials related to government restructuring. Intermunicipal cooperation was the most common form of government restructuring that was reported.
The Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council
The Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council completed a Village of Macedon Dissolution Study in October 2002. The study looked at operations and management, building/planning, court system, fire protection, law enforcement, parks and public works to determine the potential consequences of a merger between the Village and the Town of Macedon.
Harvard University: Government Innovators Network:
This short paper, City-County Consolidation and Diseconomies of Scale, summarizes existing literature related to the economics of consolidation and includes a good bibliography of online sources.
Ithaca Times:
Mary Bulkot of the Ithaca Times reviews shared services and consolidation efforts in Tompkins County, New York in an in-depth June 29th, 2005 article called Winning Combination.
Maine Center for Economic Policy: Choices Issue Brief
A New Approach to Reducing Local Property Taxes: Municipal Consolidation vol. 2 no. 8 argues for municipal consolidation as a way to reduce property taxes and spur business development.
Maine Municipal Association: Maine Townsmen
A Municipal Perspective on Regionalization, Consolidation and Interlocal Cooperation presents the official opinion of the Maine Municipal Association Executive Committee regarding shared services and consolidation.
Mercer County Regional Planning Commission: Shenango Valley Intergovernmental Study Committee
A committee of government representatives and citizens formed a committee to study consolidation alternatives in Mercer County, Pennsylvania and released a sub-committee reports and a Final Committee Report in 2003.
Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington: Municipal Research News Summer 2003 Issue
An article in the Municipal Research News called Is Consolidation the Answer? reviews existing research regarding municipal consolidation and summarizes arguments for and against the consolidation of local governments. The article also discusses the economies of scale of municipal service provision.
New York State Department of State: Office of Counsel: Legal Memoranda
Legal Memorandum LG01 INTERMUNICIPAL COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS COOPERATION: THE KEY TO COST-EFFICIENCY discusses the use of intermunicipal agreements as defined in NYS General Municipal Law. The page also links to two sample intermunicipal agreements.
New York State Department of State: Division of Local Government: Publications
The Publications page of the New York State Department of State Division of Local Government links to several documents related to local government cooperation including the following:
New York State Office of the State Comptroller: Division of Local Government Services & Economic Development
The Office of the State Comptroller's report, Local Government Management Guide: Intermunicipal Cooperation, makes recommendations on how to study and implement cooperative efforts between local governments. Outdated Municipal Structures examines how traditional classifications no longer fit many of today's local governments, and a discussion of policy implications.
Onondaga Citizens League: OCL Studies
The Onondaga Citizens League issued the report Strategic Government Consolidation in 2005. The report analyzes the problems that Onondaga County faces and how consolidation would address those problems. The report also offers several recommendations for moving forward.
Office of the New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer: Reports: Other
Making Government Work: Intergovernmental Cooperation, Partnering and Consolidation in New York State is an excellent report that discusses the existing laws in New York State that allow municipalities to work together and describes real examples of intermunicipal cooperation between communities throughout New York.
Pace Law School: Land Use Law Center: Community Tools: Intermunicipal Cooperation Tools
This page provides a good overview of how to form intermunicipal councils in order to work together to address common problems. It also includes case studies of intermunicipal councils in New York State and provides links to other sites and reports related to intermunicipal cooperation.
Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development: Publications
Available for download from the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development: Publications page, the Intergovernmental Cooperation Handbook discusses why intergovernmental cooperation is so important and different ways that local governments can work together to save money and improve services.
Tennessee Municipal Technical Advisory Service: Knowledge Base
This article, The Consolidation of City and County Governments: A Look At the History and Outcome-Based Research of These Efforts, provides a brief but useful history of city-county consolidations in the United States.
The University at Buffalo Regional Institute: Research
In fall 1997 the Regional Institute surveyed 278 Western New York cities, towns and villages to determine the nature, structure and significance of their collaborative arrangements for municipal service delivery. In 1998, a report called Municipal Cooperative Agreements in Western New York: Survey Findings was released which revealed a long and widespread tradition of service delivery partnerships in the region.
The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute: Government and Politics
The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has published two articles on local government consolidation, Cooperation Not Consolidation: The Answer for Milwaukee Governance and The Future of Government Consolidation in Milwaukee County. Both articles described consolidation efforts that have occurred around the country.
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