Municipal Shared Services and Consolidation provides a comprehensive and clear review of the theories and practices of structuring and managing complex local government services. Intended for both students and practitioners, this volume in the Public Solutions Handbook Series addresses concepts and processes of shaping collaborative arrangements in public service with goals of effectiveness and efficiency in mind. The Handbook begins with a review of theories of shared services and consolidation, highlighting conceptual foundations, practical barriers, and cultural considerations related to these efforts. Specific, practical advice follows, highlighting the processes of creating, implementing, and managing shared services and consolidation agreements. Municipal Shared Services and Consolidation is exceptionally well written and is amplified by examples, cases, illustrations, and a comprehensive bibliography.

Times have changed! The way government does business must also change. This handbook is a guide for any public official who has the interest, desire, intestinal fortitude, and courage to take the bold steps needed to deliver services to their constituents in a better, faster, cheaper, and more efficient way. The process of creating a shared service environment is difficult and challenging. But it is a proven method for improving services while saving tax dollars. One county joined forces with its largest city and school district to form its own health and wellness center. The result: $20m savings in the first three years of operation. Shared services work!

"Local government is struggling to continue delivering efficient and effective public services using traditional municipal service delivery structures. In this book, an internationally renowned academic and a local practitioner combine insights and experiences to aid stakeholders in assessing public service delivery alternatives. The authors align the characteristics of each municipal service with the advantages and disadvantages of alternative service delivery mechanisms"--P. [4] of cover.

American government is in the midst of a reputation crisis. An overwhelming majority of citizens—Republicans and Democrats alike—hold negative perceptions of the government and believe it is wasteful, inefficient, and doing a generally poor job managing public programs and providing public services. When social problems arise, Americans are therefore skeptical that the government has the ability to respond effectively. It’s a serious problem, argues Amy E. Lerman, and it will not be a simple one to fix. With Good Enough for Government Work, Lerman uses surveys, experiments, and public opinion data to argue persuasively that the reputation of government is itself an impediment to government’s ability to achieve the common good. In addition to improving its efficiency and effectiveness, government therefore has an equally critical task: countering the belief that the public sector is mired in incompetence. Lerman takes readers through the main challenges. Negative perceptions are highly resistant to change, she shows, because we tend to perceive the world in a way that confirms our negative stereotypes of government—even in the face of new information. Those who hold particularly negative perceptions also begin to “opt out” in favor of private alternatives, such as sending their children to private schools, living in gated communities, and refusing to participate in public health insurance programs. When sufficient numbers of people opt out of public services, the result can be a decline in the objective quality of public provision. In this way, citizens’ beliefs about government can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with consequences for all. Lerman concludes with practical solutions for how the government might improve its reputation and roll back current efforts to eliminate or privatize even some of the most critical public services.

In Local Hands examines the contemporary (post-2010) village government dissolution movement and renewed state-level effort to encourage local government restructuring against the backdrop of evolving statutory authority, growing fiscal pressures, and state incentives. Drawing on multiple disciplines, Lisa K. Parshall explores the contemporary village dissolution movement in New York State, the impetus behind these reforms, and the impact of the state-level policies and incentives that are driving a growing number of local communities to consider local government reorganization through the elimination of villages as governing entities. Parshall explores the social, political, and narrative contexts in which these community-level debates occur, providing us with a study of local democracy in action and of the power of local control over the creation and dissolution of local governing entities. With its dual within and cross-case study focus on New York State villages, In Local Hands is both timeless and timely, providing valuable contributions to the study of municipal development and reorganization.

Municipalities in Canada have an array of servicing options available to them when producing or delivering local services, such as water, public transit, and waste collection, including in-house provision or privatization. However, services may also be contracted or jointly-delivered with neighbouring municipalities – a practice some local governments are increasingly gravitating towards. Delivery by Design sheds light on this practice in Canadian local government by examining three crucial questions: Why do municipalities cooperate? What is being shared or contracted with other governments? And what leads to successful or unsuccessful relationships between municipalities? The book finds that Canadian municipalities are cooperating fairly regularly, but are doing so in a small number of policy areas, mainly emergency and administrative services. Zachary Spicer examines these types of relationships, explaining how they will be crucial in the future as local services are increasingly shared or jointly delivered by municipal governments. Relying on extensive data and document collection, surveys, and a series of primary interviews with local decision-makers, Delivery by Design explores the nature of interlocal collaboration in Canada, mapping out a relatively understudied process in local governance.

American cities continue to experience profound fiscal crises. Falling revenues cannot keep pace with the increased costs of vital public services, infrastructure development and improvement, and adequately funded pensions. Chicago presents an especially vivid example of these issues, as the state of Illinois's rocky fiscal condition compounds the city's daunting budget challenges. In The People's Money, Michael A. Pagano curates a group of essays that emerged from discussions at the 2018 UIC Urban Forum. The contributors explore fundamental questions related to measuring the fiscal health of cities, including how cities can raise revenue, the accountability of today's officials for the future financial position of a city, the legal and practical obstacles to pension reform and a balanced budget, and whether political collaboration offers an alternative to the competition that often undermines regional governance.Contributors: Jered B. Carr, Rebecca Hendrick, Martin J. Luby, David Merriman, Michael A. Pagano, David Saustad, Casey Sebetto, Michael D. Siciliano, James E. Spiotto, Gary Strong, Shu Wang, and Yonghong Wu

Access to quality services and community infrastructure are vital parts of supporting sustainable and resilient rural and small town places. Renewing outdated infrastructure and supporting the delivery of services in rural communities present significant challenges from the constrained fiscal and policy realities of the 21st century. Drawing upon contributors from five Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, this book describes innovative service delivery and community infrastructure models that are appropriate to the contemporary rural and resource-dependent regions of developed economies. The examples show that an entrepreneurial approach to service delivery and infrastructure provision by local organizations and governments is needed. Critical economic and community development supports are crucial to assist creative and innovative sets of solutions that work for small communities. Chapters in this book argue that community development foundations for resilient rural and small town communities and regions must be co-constructed and co-delivered in partnership by both local and senior government actors, in terms of both policy and committed resources. This volume will be extremely valuable for students, scholars, and community development practitioners exploring policy-making, government initiatives, and community service provision in rural and small town places.

This book provides a comprehensive treatment of traditional as well as newer topics in local public, fiscal and financial management principles and practices. It covers traditional topics of local public management, local revenue administration with special emphasis on property tax administration, local budgeting and accounting, and methods of capital finance. Newer topics covered include political economy of local government, fiscal rules for local fiscal discipline, local government integrity and performance accountability, and municipal mergers and inter-municipal cooperation based upon relative importance and political, fiscal and administrative autonomy of local governments. The treatment is non-technical and suitable for a wide variety of audiences including scholars, instructors, students, policy advisors, and practitioners.