WETHERSFIELD - A roundtable of area mayors will examine paving, emergency dispatch, equipment purchases, and animal control in early efforts to find room for collaborative cost saving.

       That was the consensus reached at the May 19 meeting held in Hartford, according to Wethersfield Mayor Paul Montinieri, who has been leading the discussions.

       Mayors Roy Zartarian of Newington, Claudia Baio of Rocky Hill, and Enzo Faienza of Cromwell have been taking part in the talks, which aim to reduce municipal level costs in order to better prepare for state-level reductions in municipal aid.

       With Connecticut facing a near-billion dollar deficit, municipal leaders anticipate having to tighten their belts as revenue streams from Hartford are impacted.

       â€�"The plan is to have regional planning in order to help not only our communities, but Hartford to get out of its mess,” Montinieri said. â€�"The truth is, what happens in Hartford affects us.”

       The first area would be paving, and Montinieri thinks that the four towns can accomplish that fairly quickly-possibly within this fiscal year. Earlier, participants in the talks discussed potential savings that could be generated by launching joint road projects along routes that run through multiple municipalities.

       â€�"That’s probably going to come to fruition faster because there’s really no objection,” Montinieri said. â€�"It’s just a matter of logistics.”

       In Newington, that comes down to the town’s tendency to do most of its paving work in-house, Zartarian said.

       But the town might be able to reap some savings by sharing equipment, he said.

       â€�"We’re right now just taking baby steps,” Zartarian said. â€�"What will come of it remains to be seen.”

       Montinieri’s also optimistic about capital purchases, within which the collaborating towns could share the cost of vehicles. That, too, could happen within the fiscal year, he said.

       Then there’s emergency dispatch, which he expects to be trickier to consolidate. It’s already had its share of controversy, with a bill discussed this past legislative session looking to centralize 911 answering points among municipalities that fall below certain population and call volume thresholds.

       House Bill 554 would have stripped Public Safety Answering Point, (PSAP) funding from municipalities-under a 40,000 population and 12,000 emergency call volume threshold-that do not join a regional or multi-town dispatch center.

       The state currently covers those expenses, while towns provide their own emergency radio communications infrastructure. But the bill-which seeks to establish a governing body and regulations for the restructuring-would require qualifying towns that choose to remain a single entity to reimburse the state for PSAP equipment costs.

       Area police chiefs contend that such a move would create a logistical challenge due to everything from differing equipment systems and labor union contracts.

       â€�"On the face of it, it’s going to be a politically sensitive issue,” said Newington Mayor Roy Zartarian. â€�"Complicated is an understatement.”

       Wethersfield recently replaced its emergency radio communication system for around $4 million.

       Montinieri said that he expects that to take longer, given the need to discuss the matter with local police chiefs and-preferably-time such a transition so that any staffing changes could be carried out through attrition or moving personnel around.

       â€�"I’d like to do that in a time frame in which nobody loses their job,” he said.

       For Cromwell, there’s an additional complication. The fact that the town’s police and fire districts are separate entities-the fire district is financially independent of the town-makes a consolidation at this point in time unfeasible, said Mayor Enzo Faienza.

       â€�"Dispatch [regionalization] is not remotely possible,” Faienza said. â€�"I’m not saying that at some point, we couldn’t work toward that, but if we can’t find a way to coordinate [around] that, it’d be hard to regionalize that.”

       The group will discuss each individual area through a series of meetings that will include Town Managers of the respective municipalities, Montinieri said.

       â€�"Our approach is to get one or two victories to indicate what we can do here,” he said. â€�"The atmosphere is supportive. There’s caution, obviously, but we have to have this discussion.”

       Other mayors at the table have echoed this sentiment.

       â€�"We’re finding ways to work together,” Faienza said. â€�"I think that’s the future. We’ve started something really good.”