CARIBOU – The state has more than $2 million available to help cultivate regional initiatives in Maine, and the Northern Maine Development Commission is hopeful Aroostook County municipalities can develop plans to get some of the cash.

The process was started two years ago with a summit conference hosted by the Aroostook County Empowerment Zone, one of 10 in the country and one of two created by the federal government because of migration out of Aroostook County.

More than 150 municipal officials and administrators of many Aroostook County agencies attended the daylong conference on Regionalism and the County at the Caribou Inn and Convention Center on Thursday.

“We want them to come away from here today with pilot projects, three or four of them, to regionalize programs and services,” Robert Clark, executive director of the NMDC, said before the summit started Thursday morning. “We want to start or continue dialogues on projects to reduce costs, duplication of services and capital expenditures like large machinery.”

In the end, they came up with projects, but only in general terms. Officials, according to Clark later Thursday, want to look at projects in transportation and emergency services.

“We now have to determine which projects fall within what categories,” Clark said. “Overall, it was a successful day and they want to continue round-table discussions on municipal service.

“They [officials] were really fired up,” he said. “We received many positive comments in breakout sessions.”

At a small group session, they talked about ideas on mutual goals and looking beyond their boundaries. They were asked to “trust and respect,” discuss with optimism and think outside the box.

“We may not have everything we want, but what we have is important,” Gov. John Baldacci told officials at lunch. “We have much work to do, but things are turning around.

“People are back to work, but we have a lot of people who need retraining for new jobs,” he said. “A lot of it is happening because people are pulling together.”

“Regionalism, or better yet, collaboration, is not about losing local control,” Nancy Stark, director of the Rural Governance Initiative in Washington, D.C., told officials in her keynote address. “It’s a need for local agreements, the building of relationships.

“Details are easy after relationships are established,” she told them. “Economic development cannot be done by towns, it has to be done on a regional basis.”

She outlined a nine-point program to develop communities’ relationships.

Aroostook County officials pointed out that there already are many regional efforts under way. These include: mutual aid agreements with fire and police departments; regional solid waste facilities; ambulance services that serve many communities; public works departments that plow and repair roads in several towns; recreation centers and libraries, vehicle registrations by larger towns for smaller municipalities; regional busing of school children; snowmobile trail development and maintenance; and the sharing of police dogs for searches.

The county also has the example of Mapleton, Castle Hill and Chapman, towns that share a municipal building, government officials including a town manager, and fire and highway departments.

“Similar goals, solid dedication from each town and geographic advantages make it work,” John Edgecomb, town manager for the three towns, said. “More than 80 percent of the annual budget is shared for many departments and services.”

“For the three towns, it means cost savings, more efficient and better-trained staff and saved money for capital equipment costs,” Edgecomb said.

He added that there are disadvantages in record keeping and accounting, but, overall, the situation is better for all three towns.

Mapleton has a population of about 2,000 while the two smaller towns have populations of about 500 people each.