Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato not only believes in a city-county merger, but he is reaching out to small municipalities that are wary of the idea, pitching them on a services consolidation plan of their own.

"We have to start thinking in ways of how we can make government not only cost-effective, but efficient," said Mr. Onorato, who has proposed a one-time capital initiative to help suburban communities combine their police and fire departments.

If they do, Mr. Onorato, who recently met with a group of about 50 officials, including police and fire chiefs and municipal administrators, said his administration will serve as "a facilitator" and "help with the implementation."

That means that small townships and boroughs around the county that are interested in merging their services will get a one-time capital grant from his office to help them expand their infrastructure like building bigger facilities, Mr. Onorato said.

Citing his consolidation of six of 10 county row offices and the merging of five 911 suburban call centers into one central location in Point Breeze, he said that many small communities should look to "functional consolidation of services" as a way of streamlining government.

"It's a good government idea and it's the right thing to do for the good of the municipalities, the county and the region," Mr. Onorato said. "We are concentrating on police and volunteer fire departments because they take up the biggest part of the budget for many communities that are struggling financially."

His idea, he said, would entail consolidating or contracting services like the four municipalities -- Pine, Marshall, Bradford Woods and Richland Township -- in the northern part of the county that formed the Northern Regional Police Department and Ohio Township police department, which is contracted to serve eight surrounding communities.

So far, Mr. Onorato said, his office has no estimates of how much money it will cost to implement the plan countywide, and much of the funding will come from the state, foundation grants and some federal sources.

"What I am looking for is a group of municipalities that can band together. I need about five or 10 small municipalities to show me their consolidation plans, and we will help them with one-time capital costs for equipment and buildings," Mr. Onorato added.

Kevin Evanto, his spokesman, said the meeting was "a first step" in what county officials hope will be an ongoing dialogue with a number of municipalities about possibly merging their services.

But some municipal officials who attended the meeting contend that even though it is a good idea in principle, many communities are hesitant to commit themselves to a consolidation plan because they are unsure of how it will be implemented.

"This is a good concept, but I think it comes down to whether [Mr. Onorato] can come up with the funding, and whether many communities will want to do it," said Robinson Police Chief Dale Vietmeier.

For some communities, consolidation makes sense, said Mr. Vietmeier, but for others, like Robinson, it might be a tough sale.

"We are a larger police department than most of the communities that would be interested in this, and we already have mutual aid agreements with the municipalities around us," said Mr. Vietmeier.

"My thought on this, and what I told [Mr. Onorato] during that meeting is that he has to narrow down what he wants to do," he added. "You can't talk about consolidating police and fire departments at the same meeting, and you have to break it down by region."

Dormont Police Chief Russ McKibben said he would welcome any efforts to merge services because the funding of public safety departments is increasingly costly for smaller entities.

"Our tax base is shrinking and, just like many small municipalities, public safety is our biggest expenditure and we're constantly struggling," he said. Consolidation of police services with surrounding communities like Baldwin, Castle Shannon and Mt. Lebanon, he added, would enhance his department's ability to provide better services.

The 15-year Dormont chief said the biggest hurdle for Mr. Onorato is centered around two fundamental questions: Will small municipalities buy into the plan, and what kind of consolidation is Mr. Onorato proposing?

"The problem is that we have two models out there. On one hand, there is a full merger of departments. On the other hand, a contracting of services. Different people are going to sign onto different plans," he said.

Mr. McKibben said he would be in favor of a full merger because "when you contract services, you ... really don't have a say in what you're getting, and the relationship is very unstable because a contract can expire."

Ohio Township Manager John Sullivan disagrees.

"Contracting is a much easier and cleaner process," he said, noting that there will be little political will for the plan if it comes down to merging departments.

"When you merge two or more departments, it means dealing with labor contracts, elimination of jobs and changing of positions, and that might be very hard for some people to accept," Mr. Sullivan said.

With 11 full-time and about 18 part-time officers, Ohio Township is contracted to serve Neville, Ben Avon Borough, Ben Avon Heights Borough, Aleppo, Kilbuck, Sewickley Hills and Emsworth, he said.

Bob Amann, head of the Northern Regional Police Department, argued that either a full scale departmental merger or a contracting of services scheme will depend on the "political openness of the people involved."

He said that the challenge for Mr. Onorato's proposal will be "creating the political space" necessary for the parties involved to start a new government structure.