One of the Commonweath’s Sustainable Development Principles encourages communities to “plan regionally.”  There is an opportunity to promote such regional collaboration by steering state grants to municipalities that practice partnership and collaboration with neighboring cities and towns.  

Whenever practical, state agencies should encourage cities and towns to submit join applications, and to demonstrate the degree to which a joint application would reduce and/or increase public benefit.  Applications from multiple communities should receive higher scores to reward and encourage regional collaboration.  

The Commonwealth Capital system was recently modified to provide additional points to municipalities that pursue opportunities to work with their neighbors on a wide array of issues such as land use planning, joint development of facilities and infrastructure, and protection of natural resources across municipal boundaries.  The new criteria is: “Execution of a compact or MOU, provision of funding, or regulatory change to attain a regional or intergovernmental goal”

The Governor can issue an executive order to make regional collaboration a priority across state government.  Such an order—issued to all secretariats, agencies, commissions, and authorities—would ask them to evaluate every grant, loan, and technical assistance program for opportunities to promote cross-boundary cooperation, collaboration and regional service delivery. 

3.a    The Governor should issue an Executive Order on Regionalism

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