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Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
A study released in July by the Division of Local Services analyzes the benefits and drawbacks should the towns of Hamilton and Wenham eventually merge into a single municipality.
The two towns, which already share a school system and a library, in recent years have explored further regionalization, including combining their police departments. The 123-page DLS study, conducted at the request of Hamilton and Wenham officials, also analyzes each potential area of consolidation.
No Massachusetts municipality has merged with a neighbor since Boston absorbed the town of Hyde Park in 1911. While finding that the two towns would save money as a single entity, the study also highlights a number of complex issues that would need to be resolved, particularly their disparate tax rates. The study suggests that Wenham homeowners would likely end up paying somewhat more than they now pay in property taxes, while their counterparts in Hamilton would pay somewhat less.
Savings from a merger are estimated at about $750,000 a year, a figure that would be higher if the two towns had not already merged their school districts years ago. If the school district were to fall under a single municipality, however, rather than being “regional,” the new community would miss out on roughly $550,000 in state aid for busing that Hamilton and Wenham currently receive.
Merging the two governments in their entirety, according to the DLS report, “would necessitate a carefully coordinated and comprehensive three-year process. … Agreements between the individual towns would have to be reached on new bylaws, zoning, operating procedures, personnel policies and financial management practices. Merging technologies would be labor-intensive and costly but also critical. Most significant, it would be necessary to negotiate new union contracts.”
The report also advises that “one-time transition costs for outside consultants” could total between $500,000 and $ 1 million. “Included would likely be expenditures for town counsel, labor counsel, technology consultants, police and fire consultants, as well as other experts to work through transition logistics, the transfer of power and succession of governments.”
Combining police departments – a measure that selectmen in each community discussed this spring but did not move toward implementing – would save about $514,000 on its own, the DLS study found.
Hamilton Town Administrator Candace Wheeler described the failure to reach an agreement on police services as a lost opportunity.
“We did have a moment here when, because of attrition and the retirement of the [Hamilton police] chief, we actually wouldn’t have had to do a lot of layoffs,” Wheeler said.
Now that the hiring of a new chief under a three-year contract is imminent, she said, merging the departments in the immediate future is unlikely. But, she added, “It remains something that will be looked at by both towns.”