10,000 Friends reacts to Rendell budget

10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, an advocacy group that bills itself as "the leading voice for smart growth in Pennsylvania," likes what it heard from Gov. Ed Rendell's call to make government more cost-effective be reducing the number of municipal governments and school districts in Pennsylvania.

Here is a commentary released today from Judy Schwank, the president and CEO of the Harrisburg-based group:

Working Together for Efficiency

In his budget address for the coming fiscal year, Governor Rendell made it clear that in these tough economic times state and local governments must get smarter about how they use our money. Now more than ever, every public dollar should be spent in a way that is cost-effective and produces the biggest bang for the buck.

One of the best ways to improve government efficiency is to "right-size" the delivery of public services. The Governor endorsed the State Planning Board's recommendation to encourage local governments to join together to provide essential services such as police and fire protection.

Pennsylvania has an overabundance of local governments, with nearly 2,600 municipalities employing some 400,000 people. Surely there are efficiencies to be gained by working together across boundaries to pool resources and share service delivery to achieve economies of scale. To be clear, the State Planning Board is not calling for mandatory consolidation of local governments or police and fire departments, and neither is the Governor. The proposal is simply to create incentives to make it easier for local governments to work together on a voluntary basis when it makes sense to do so.

Similarly, Governor Rendell called for a legislative commission to study how to "right-size" our school districts, of which there are 500 in Pennsylvania. The idea is not to merge schools to make them bigger, but to consider options for consolidation at the administrative level to save money and reduce the pressure
to raise property taxes.

The Governor also praised the Sustainable Water Infrastructure Task Force, which developed a series of recommendations to improve the efficiency of sewer and drinking water systems. The Task Force has urged the state to remove barriers and provide incentives for the consolidation of water and sewer systems, which could result in considerable cost savings and render the systems more sustainable in the long run.

We commend Governor Rendell for calling attention to important opportunities to make better use of our tax dollars in these challenging times. He understands that in government, just as in business, it is critical to operate at an appropriate scale so that redundancies can be eliminated and resources can be put to the best possible use.

As Pennsylvanians, we value our system of strong local governments, most of which are small and close to the people. But we can preserve that system while at the same working together across municipal boundaries to save money and ensure the delivery of high-quality services.

Judy Schwank, President & CEO
10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania
www.10000friends.org