Could municipalities be a thing of the past?

Imagine a day when municipal boundaries no longer exist.

With no borough councils, township supervisors or local police forces, all government services would be run from the top down, with each county in Pennsylvania controlled by an elected panel making decisions for everyone.

Fire departments would be centralized. A county legal department would replace township or borough solicitors. Zoning regulations would be drawn up on a county-wide basis. Sanitation and health standards would be identical throughout the county, all in the name of cost savings and eliminating unnecessary duplication of services.

Such an overthrow is spelled out in House Bill 2431, introduced earlier this year by state Rep. Thomas R. Caltagirone, D-127, Berks County. It is set for a House Local Government Committee hearing Aug. 18 in the state Capitol.

"Everybody in this state has their own little fiefdoms. Isn't that cute?" Caltagirone said in an interview last week. "This state is in the pits. We're back in the 1700s. Change is inevitable. Our local municipalities are going belly up. They're stretched to the limit. How much time is it going to be until we have more and more municipalities failing? Why can't we talk about this?"

Each of Schuylkill County's 67 municipalities maintain its own solicitor. Each also employs an engineer. Many maintain local police forces, paying salaries and costly benefits packages for their officers.

The cost for those services reaches the hundreds of thousands of dollars, let alone the cost for administrative and other staff members each municipality needs for daily operations.

An overseeing county government body would eliminate those costs and, hopefully, savings would trickle down to taxpayers, according to proponents.

Despite his passion for a more centralized, powerful government, Caltagirone's revolutionary plan appears dead on arrival in the House.

State Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-124, Tamaqua, described it as having "a snowball's chance in hell" of passing anytime in the near future.

State Sen. David Argall, R-29, Tamaqua, said he doesn't think the bill would get 20 votes if it came to a vote in the House.

State Rep. Neal Goodman, D-123, Mahanoy City, said he supports municipalities working together and potentially sharing some services, but Caltagirone's plan is a dream that, in practice, would never work.

"We formed a government system that works from the local level up," Goodman said last week. "To suddenly consolidate them ... I don't see how that would work. I don't see any movement on this in the General Assembly. It is not something I would support."

The Senate's sister bill, 1357, is less sweeping. It recommends "boundary review commissions" and other efforts to look at ways municipalities can cut costs by sharing services. While touching on the possibility of borough or township elimination, it does not take a hatchet to the very structure of Pennsylvania government the way Caltagirone's bill does.

Argall said he sees little chance of the Senate bill coming to a full vote.

"That is never going to happen," he said, adding in conversations with colleagues in both chambers, he is now of the impression "the bills are dead."

Before ever becoming law, House Bill 2431 would face a steep climb because it would require amending the state Constitution. It must be passed by two consecutive sessions in the Legislature.

After that, it would go to a statewide ballot referendum, in which residents across the state would essentially be asked to vote on whether they would like to see their hometown abolished as a legal entity.

Support for the bill has dropped dramatically in recent months. When it was first introduced in April, it had a dozen co-sponsors.

Now, it has only three: Caltagirone, state Rep. Joseph Preston, D-24, Allegheny County, and state Rep. Rosita Youngblood, D-198, Philadelphia.

Some legislators have withdrawn their support from the bill. Caltagirone says they are "buckling" to the pressure from municipal officials unwilling to embrace change, even if such change would result in huge cost savings and more stable, viable county governments.

"The ones I'm getting the biggest slap in the face from are the local elected officials," Caltagirone said. "What is government all about? Is it about jobs, or is it about the most cost-effective services?"

Caltagirone also rejects the notion that the "identity" of local communities would be lost overnight - a claim made by many who oppose his efforts, including Schuylkill County commissioners Chairwoman Mantura M. Gallagher.

"Can you imagine if people lose their identities?" Gallagher said. "In my estimation, something like this will never happen."

However, Caltagirone says historical boundaries and identities would be maintained. It is only the government structure, he argues, that would go by the wayside.

"It's not like everybody (in Schuylkill County) would have to come to Pottsville just to do their business," he said.

Satellite offices would be set up throughout the county to handle road maintenance, legal needs, zoning requests and other tasks. But rather than each of the county's municipalities hiring its own solicitor and engineer, millions of dollars would be saved by a single legal or engineering office.

That particular aspect, Caltagirone said, is not popular with lawyers.

"Remember who we are all up against here - all of the law firms," he said, adding such firms would stand to lose huge sums of money if each relatively small township no longer has to shell out hundreds of dollars an hour for legal opinions relevant only within its boundaries.

While admitting that the bill is unlikely to come to a vote anytime soon, state Rep. Tim Seip, D-125, did not rule out supporting it during an interview last week.

"I think we do have to find some ways to share services, to look at the big picture," Seip said. "I understand people hesitate to make such a significant change. But I think we're on the cusp of this kind of thinking. A lot of these local governments need to examine this issue. There is going to have to be an effort to share services, whether it be COGs (councils of local governments) or something else. There are going to be people who really resist this for a whole host of reasons."

As for Caltagirone's bill specifically, Seip said he would want to attend hearings and talk to stakeholders before coming to a decision.

If passed, the bill would also wipe away one of the state's most controversial issues - local property taxes.

With no formal municipal governments, local property taxes would be eliminated overnight, leaving only county real estate and school district property taxes, according to Caltagirone.

"In one fell swoop, you eliminate the local property tax," he said.

However, he did concede that counties may be forced to raise their real-estate tax rates in order to provide exponentially more services across an entire county.

If nothing else, the bill appears to be a way to spur outside-the-box thinking.

"I think what Tom is trying to do is start a conversation," Goodman said.

The conversation has started, but many are ready to end it.

"I think this is terrible legislation," Knowles said. "Tom (Caltagirone) is a great guy ... but I'm baffled as to where he's going with this."

bwolfgang@republicanherald.com