AN ACT PROMOTING REGIONALIZATION.

This bill provides procedural and financial incentives for municipalities to perform functions or deliver services regionally. The law allows municipalities to do this through interlocal agreements and provides procedures for negotiating them. The bill makes it easier for them to enter into these agreements by allowing them to select one of their attorneys to review and approve the agreement. It also allows them to appoint one person or officer to administer it.

The bill provides funds for performing functions and delivering services regionally. It provides separate grants for developing the infrastructure and purchasing equipment municipalities need to operate regionally. The law provides grants for delivering services, but municipalities can access them only through their respective regional planning organizations (CGS § 7-124s). The bill also provides extra Local Capital Improvement Program (LoCIP) and Town Road Aid funds to municipalities that perform functions or delivery services regionally.

The bill requires the Office of Policy and Management (OPM) secretary to hold annual seminars for municipalities on how they can benefit from operating regionally. The secretary must do this within available appropriations.

Lastly, the bill allows municipalities to delay a property tax revaluation for up to two years if they are unable to enter into an interlocal agreement with a private revaluation company.

The law provides two procedures for entering into interlocal agreements. One requires a public hearing on the proposed agreement followed by legislative body approval. The other requires legislative body approval and five-year reviews.

The bill allows the chief executive officers (CEOs) of the municipalities negotiating an agreement under either procedure to select one of their municipal attorneys to review and approve it and any sub agreements. The CEOs may do this for any agreement to purchase goods and equipment, deliver a service, or perform a function. The bill also allows the CEOs to select one office or person to administer it.

The bill authorizes OPM-administered grants for the actual or anticipated costs of developing capital infrastructure needed to perform a function or provide a service regionally or extend an existing function or service to more municipalities. Municipalities cannot use the grants for planning costs. Existing law authorizes grants for delivering municipal services on a regional basis, but municipalities can access them through only their respective regional planning organizations (CGS § 7-124s).

The maximum grant amounts vary depending on the number of municipalities proposing to perform the function or deliver the service. The OPM secretary may provide up to $ 3 million for an application submitted by at least three municipalities with a combined population of at least 50,000 people. He may provide up to $ 1 million grants for an application submitted by at least four municipalities regardless of their combined population.

The secretary must prescribe the format for submitting applications. In awarding grants, he may give priority to applications that benefit the greatest number of municipalities or the greatest population and to those that generate the greatest savings.

The bill also authorizes grants for jointly acquiring capital equipment needed to perform functions or deliver services. Municipalities may use the grants to purchase:

1. a specified range of trucks and other vehicles needed to perform a function or deliver a service or

2. equipment with an anticipated remaining useful life of at least five years from its purchase date, including data processing equipment with a unit price less than $ 1,000.

Municipalities may acquire this equipment through prepayment or purchase options under existing capital leases.

The secretary must prescribe how to apply for the grants, which must cover 75% of the total cost each participating municipality incurs or will incur by jointly purchasing the equipment or $ 250,000, whichever is less.

The bill authorizes extra LoCIP funds for municipalities that executed interlocal agreements and applied for the infrastructure grants the bill authorizes. The interlocal agreement must be the type that requires legislative body approval and five-year reviews. The state funds LoCIP grants with General Obligation bonds and allocates the proceeds to municipalities based on a statutory formula.

The bonus equals 10% of the LoCIP grant a municipality received for the fiscal year preceding the year the secretary approved its infrastructure grant regardless of whether it actually received that grant. The municipality qualifies for the bonus regardless of whether it received a regionalization grant. It gets the LoCIP bonus for three consecutive years.

The bill requires the secretary to deduct the bonus funds from the total LoCIP allocation and then calculate each municipality's annual grant.

The bill authorizes bonus road aid grants under the same conditions as it authorizes bonus LoCIP grants. The grants equal 10% of a municipality's road aid grant for fiscal year during which the municipality the secretary approved its application for infrastructure grants. The municipality receives bonus grants for three years, starting with the year after it qualified for them. The transportation commissioner must deduct the bonus grant amounts from the total allocated for road aid and then calculate each municipality's annual road aid grant.

Starting December 31, 2010, the secretary must annually conduct or sponsor a seminar informing local officials about the costs and benefits of delivering services and purchasing goods regionally. In doing so, he must include, to the extent possible, the municipalities that have successfully delivered services and purchased goods regionally. The secretary must conduct these seminars within available appropriations.

The bill allows the OPM secretary to postpone a revaluation under limited circumstances. By law, municipalities must revalue property at least once every five years. Many hire private real estate appraisal companies to value the property on their behalf. Those that must revalue property at the same time can reduce their costs by jointly hiring a company to revalue. But their ability to do so depends on the demand for revaluation services that year.

In these cases, the bill allows the secretary to grant up to two-year extensions to municipalities that cannot execute an interlocal agreement for private revaluation services because the companies are too busy. A municipality's CEO must request an extension in writing accompanied by a letter from the other municipalities with whom it is negotiating the agreement. These letters must indicate the willing of the municipalities' CEOs to enter the agreement.

The secretary must send a notice to the municipality requesting the extension about his decision. If he grants the extension, he must send copy of the notice to CEO of each municipality that submitted letters on behalf of the municipality that requested the extension.

The bill provides a quicker, alternative process for entering into an interlocal agreement than the two the law already provides. Both require legislative body approval. One gives municipalities blanket authority to perform any function they can perform individually. A participating municipality can approve the agreement the same way it adopts ordinances or, if it does not adopt ordinances, the same way it approves its annual budget (CGS § 7-148cc).

The other option allows municipalities to perform a specific, but long list of functions and services. The proposals must be submitted to each municipality's legislative body, which must hold at least one hearing on the proposal, consider changes, and approve or reject the final proposal. The law requires the agreement to address, among other things, (1) the maximum duration, (2) employee indemnification, and (3) dispute resolution (CGS §§ 7-339a—339l).

SB 388 allows municipalities to delay for one year a revaluation they completed on October 1, 2008. The Planning and Development Committee favorably reported the bill on March 13. SB 997 allows municipalities to delay revaluations that must be implemented in 2008, 2009, or 2010 until 2011. The Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee reported the bill favorably on March 24.

Yea

Nay

(03/13/2009)