Pennsylvania has a lot of municipalities.

There are cities of varying sizes, townships, boroughs and even one town. All told, there are 2,562 of them — each with their own elected officials.

That’s about 2,495 too many for Rep. Thomas Caltagirone.

The Berks County Democrat has introduced legislation calling for what he describes as a “massive shift” in the operations of local governments. His bill would call for a state constitutional amendment to have Pennsylvania’s 67 county governments absorb all the municipalities within their borders, and operate under a single countywide structure.

He cites a number of reasons for the idea: the rising cost of government and increasing property taxes, landlocked communities with stagnant tax bases and a loss of industries and business.

“You have such duplication of services with boroughs, townships, cities and counties, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense on economies of scale,” he said. “We should be able to hopefully save some money through more efficient operations provided on a countywide basis.”

Even supporters who praise it as a novel proposal suggest it has virtually no chance of passage. Caltagirone knows not everyone will like the idea, particularly local officials whose jobs would disappear.

“All I’m saying is, ‘Let’s take a look at it,’” Caltagirone said. “Why can’t we take the time to look at the merits of this issue? If it makes good common sense and delivers services at a much lower cost, should we not at least consider it?”

He proposes a county executive to oversee day-to-day operations and an elected county council to approve budgets and handle policy-making chores. His plan would not affect school districts. He said he had no interest in “throwing even more fuel to the fire.”

Since he introduced the bill a week ago, he said he has been flooded with e-mails and phone calls from people telling him to withdraw the bill. Only a handful of legislators put their names on as co-sponsors. One, Rep. RoseMarie Swanger, R-North Lebanon Twp., says her name was put on by mistake and has since been removed.

Caltagirone knows making such a change would be a long process. A constitutional amendment requires identical versions of the bill to pass the House and Senate in two consecutive legislative sessions. Assuming that happens, it would then go to Pennsylvania’s voters for final approval.

But he said it’s time to start the conversation.

Some midstate officials said they hope it goes beyond talk.

Read more in today’s Patriot-News

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 7:24 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.