Daily Herald editorial

Consolidation has been in the air this week in city and county meeting rooms. The city council heard a report about the possibility of creating a regional law enforcement dispatch center and the county board continued to consider a multi-county system for delivering human services. In both cases, the lure of consolidation is cost savings. As glitzy as those savings may sound, however, we hope that some major questions will receive favorable answers before too much more work goes into either project.

One of those questions has to be about the economic impact of proposed savings, because savings would mostly come from reduced personnel expenses. While providing jobs should never be government’s primary goal, knowing how many local people would lose their jobs has to be a major part of any decision on consolidation — but is a detail about which there is apparently yet no solid information.

The quality of service delivery in a multi-county agency is also a major issue. Making it harder for senior citizens or the poor to obtain necessary services strikes us as a bad thing and as a possible side-effect of social services consolidation. Some assurance of continued service quality would seem to be essential.

The proposed social services consolidation also includes a worrisome layer of extra bureaucracy, because plans call for the multi-agency system to be governed by new boards — and whether this region (or any other) needs another board or committee of any sort is questionable.

It is also hard to see how consolidation relates to plans, already well advanced, to do costly law enforcement center and courthouse remodeling projects that are specifically designed to house existing, non-consolidated departments.

If the council or county board was not involved in exploring the possibility of consolidation, it would be an error. But no less an error than being pressured or lured into jumping into a project that does not represent assured cost savings at an affordable price in terms of service delivery.