School Superintendent Burke and Town Manager Walsh will be issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) seeking an independent consultant to examine how the Town of Granby and Board of Education (BOE) operations could benefit from a “Centralized Administrative Unit” (CAU) that would serve both the Town and BOE administrative functions.
The State of Connecticut is organized into 169 individual towns, including the Town of Granby, and under a Connecticut General Statute-defined legal concept called “home rule,” each town has its own charter that designs the unique type of government that town/city operates under.
As it relates to Granby, by Granby’s Charter and the Connecticut General Statute (CGS), there is an elected Board of Selectmen that has the sole ability, among other things, to enter into agreements such as leasing and bonding that extend beyond the fiscal year. Also, by charter and CGS, there is an elected BOE that has the sole ability, among other things, to enact policies and procedures to educate Granby’s children. Finally, by charter and CGS, there is an elected Board of Finance that, among other things, is empowered to oversee the financial policies of the town and the BOE, including the creation and operation of the budget.
The powers of each board are expansive, unique and, while independent of each other in many respects, they must work together cohesively to be efficient and effective.
For decades, on a state level, individuals from the state and local elected officials, including town managers and superintendents of schools, have worked closely and cooperatively with other professional groups like CCM, COST, AICR, CRCOG, CABE, CASBO, GFOA, ConnPELRA and Regional Educational Services Centers (RESC) to better refine the process of delivering government services locally while seeking economies and efficiencies where possible.
These economies and efficiencies take many forms, with the largest group called “shared services.” Some form of shared services is employed in nearly all 169 towns. However, each town’s engagement in shared services is different. For example, here in Granby, two formal examples of Town and BOE shared services are the executed agreements for information technology and the school resource officer program.
In the former case, the BOE oversees the town’s IT function, and in the latter case, the Granby Police Department employs and trains an officer who is deployed in the schools. Both shared services agreements are solid examples of mutual Town and BOE cooperation benefiting the community.
Other formal examples of shared services that extend beyond the Town’s internal operations are the operating agreements with the Lost Acres Fire Department, Granby Ambulance and the Simsbury Water and Sewer Authority. On the education side, agreements with the City of Hartford and the Town of Hartland bring students to the Granby district for tuition fees, and the collaboration with surrounding school districts for shared professional learning, curriculum development and purchasing power.
In these cases, the Town of Granby has operating agreements to provide fire and rescue services, emergency medical care and transport and, in the case of Simsbury, an operating agreement to process sewer waste without the need for Granby to build, operate and maintain a large waste treatment plant. All these agreements represent the best practices in shared services.
Less formal, but nonetheless important, operating relationships can be seen with Simsbury, Southwick and Granby where our police departments depend upon each other for dispatch and mutual aid when radio or dispatch systems go down or manpower is overstretched on calls.
With those examples, shared services are practiced in all towns to varying degrees, but the creation and operation of a CAU have been elusive in most towns, with an estimated 15–20 of 169 Connecticut towns employing a CAU. The reasons such a unit has been elusive include political disagreement, charter or CGS conflicts, administrative trust, union agreements and a lack of material, bona fide budget savings.
While the obstacles are many, there also exist many reasons to seek such a unit, including consistent policies and procedures, more efficient use and deployment of employees and operating software such as budgeting, accounting, payroll and human resources modules. Additional reasons for a CAU include uniform presentation of the budget and a need to introduce redundancy for long-term operational stability.
The consultant, if hired, would endeavor to create a report evaluating the town’s ability to move to a CAU by the end of 2026. A deliberate and sensible examination of its report will need to occur, and with any possible changes made, it would not be done in time for the FY28 budget cycle that begins in earnest this October, but more likely it would be ready for the FY29 budget cycle.
Please let us know if you have any questions on the aforementioned. Thank you.